"If we can do so without sin."
"Sin! I despise the fear of sin which makes us think that its contact will soil us. Her sin, if it be sin, is so near akin to virtue, that I doubt whether we should not learn of her rather than avoid her."
"A woman should not live with a man unless she be his wife." Mrs. Wortle said this with more of obstinacy than he had expected.
"She was his wife, as far as she knew."
"But when she knew that it was not so any longer,—then she should have left him."
"And have starved?"
"I suppose she might have taken bread from him."
"You think, then, that she should go away from here?"
"Do not you think so? What will Mrs. Stantiloup say?"
"And I am to turn them out into the cold because of a virago such as she is? You would have no more charity than that?"