"Repentance for me," she said, "would be to leave him, would it not?"
I could not deny it.
"I will never leave him," she replied, with a calmness which was more like principle than passion. "He has sacrificed life for me; but for me he might have been a great and honoured man. And do you think I would leave him to bear his blighted life alone?"
Ah! it was no dread of scorn or discipline which kept her from the convent.
For some time I was silenced. I dared neither to reproach nor to comfort. At length I said, "Life, whether joyful or sorrowful, is very short. Holiness is infinitely better than happiness here, and holiness makes happiness in the life beyond. If you felt it would be for his good, you would do anything, at any cost to yourself, would you not?"
Her eyes filled with tears. "You believe, then, that there is some good left, even in me!" she said. "For this may God bless you!" and silently she left the room.
Five hundred years ago these two lives might have been holy, honourable, and happy; and now!—
I left that house with a heavy heart, and a mind more bewildered than before.
But that pale, worn face; those deep, sad, truthful eyes; and that brow, that might have been as pure as the brow of a St. Agnes, have haunted me often since. And whenever I think of it, I say,—
"God be merciful to them and to me, sinners!"