ion is
to the true Christian faith, which compares with real courage and truth
and honesty, as an ape compares with a man. It was not that, and Dolores
knew it, as every maiden knows it; for the honour of woman is the fact
on which the whole world turns, and has turned and will turn to the end
of things; but what is called the honour of society has been a fiction
these many centuries, and though it came first of a high parentage, of
honest thought wedded to brave deed, and though there are honourable men
yet, these are for the most part the few who talk least loudly about
honour's code, and the belief they hold has come to be a secret and a
persecuted faith, at which the common gentleman thinks fit to laugh lest
some one should presume to measure him by it and should find him
wanting.

Dolores did not mean to hesitate, after she had decided what to do. But
she could not avoid the struggle, and it was long and hard, though she
saw the end plainly before her and did not waver. Inez did not
understand and kept silence while it lasted.

It was only a word to say, but it was the word which would be repeated
against her as long as she lived, and which nothing she could ever say
or do afterwards could take back when it had once been spoken--it would
leave the mark that a lifetime could not efface. But she meant to speak
it. She could not see what her father would see, that he would rather
die, justly or unjustly, than let his daughter be dishonoured before the
world. That was a part of a man's code, perhaps, but it should not
hinder her from saving her father's life, or trying to, at whatever
cost. What she was fighting against was something much harder to
understand in herself. What could it matter now, that the world should
think her fallen from her maiden estate? The world was nothing to her,
surely. It held nothing, it meant nothing, it was nothing. Her world had
been her lover, and he lay dead in his room. In heaven, he knew that she
was innocent, as he was himself, and he would see that she was going to
accuse herself that she might save her father. In heaven, he had
forgiven his murderer, and he would understand. As for the world and
what it said, she knew that she must leave it instantly, and go from the
confession she was about to make to the convent where she was to die,
and whence her spotless soul would soon be wafted away to join her true
lover beyond the earth. There was no reason why she should find it hard
to