To turn or torture her at thirty-five?—
“But what, Pauline, Pauline,—you turning pale!—
In earnest, were you!—Had you really thought?—
In God’s name, darling, this could never be!—
Think only—Wherefore now?”
“Because,” I said,
“I hoped some good to do.”
“And do you deem,”
He ask’d, “that then the Virgin did no good,
When nursing her sweet babe?—and was no saint?