[ CHAPTER XLII.—EXIT GAVROLLES. ]
[ CHAPTER XLIII.—ON BOULOGNE SANDS. ]
[ CHAPTER XLIV.—‘JANE PEARTREE.’ ]
[ CHAPTER XLV.—AN OLD PICTURE. ]
[ CHAPTER XLVI.—HOW MADELINE ROSE AGAIN. ]
PREFATORY NOTE.
In this story I have touched, very feebly and inadequately, on one of the greatest and saddest of human problems—as great and sad, certainly, as the problem which forms the central purpose of my ‘Shadow of the Sword.’ What the creed of Peace is to the state, the creed of Purity is to the social community. So long as carnal indulgence is recognised as a masculine prerogative, so long as personal chastity is a supreme factor in the fate of women, but a mere accident in the lives of men, so long as the diabolic ingenuity of a strong sex is tortured to devise legal means for sacrificing a weaker sex—so long, in a word, as our homes and our streets remain what they are—the creed of Purity must remain as forlorn a dream as that other creed of Peace.