He sank into a chair by the
table and leaned his head on his hand. It was true that he was a
man of the world, and that for conventional morality he had felt the
contempt it deserved. Nevertheless, in loving this girl the finest and
highest instincts of his nature had been aroused. He had felt for her
even more of sentiment than of passion. When a man loves a girl whose
mental purity is as absolute as her physical, there is, intermingled
with his love, a leavening quality of reverence, and the result is
a certain purification of his own nature. That Dartmouth had
found himself capable of such a love had been a source of keenest
gratification to him. He had been lifted to a spiritual level which he
had never touched before, and there he had determined to remain.
And to have this pure and exquisite love smirched with the memory of
sin and vulgar crime! To take into his arms as his wife the woman on
whose soul was written the record of temptation and of sin! It was
like marrying one's mistress: as a matter of fact, what else was it?
But Weir Penrhyn! To connect sin with her was monstrous.
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