ess of the man
she loved, in whose interests she had made the confession that wrought
the harm. 'How dearly I have paid! how dearly I have paid!' she used to
say over and over again in her last illness.

This is an absolutely true story, and it seems to me a burning injustice
that a woman should suffer so bitterly for what would be absolutely
disregarded in a man. I have no doubt there are many similar cases, and
emphatically I say that such confessions are ill-advised. The ordinary
conventional-thinking man placed in these circumstances would either
throw a woman over, or marry her against his convictions. The
extraordinary masculine code, for some reason beyond my feminine powers
of comprehension, will not admit that a spinster who has had a lover, or
even made one 'false step,' is a fit person to wed, though no man would
object to marrying a widow, and many men take respondent _divorcees_ to
wife.

Even in the case of a rarely generous-minded, tolerant and understanding
man, who judged the offence at its true computation, such knowledge
would only prove disturbing and a source of insecurity to conjugal
happiness. No good purpose of any kind can be served, and the ease which
confession is proverbially supposed to gain for the sinner would be
bought at a very heavy price.

'But two wrongs don't make a right, and surely it can't be proper for a
woman to deceive a man on such a vital point,' the stern moralist may
exclaim. Possibly not, according to the strictly ideal standard of
ethics; but, viewed from the larger standpoints of life and of
commonsense, this 'deceit' would appear to be advisable. And be assured,
my unpleasant moralist (I'm sure you are an unpleasant person), that the
sinner will not get off 'scot free,' as you seem to fear. Many and many
a stab will be her portion, for memory is a potent poison, and every
expression of love and trust from her husband will most likely carry its
own special sting, whilst the round, innocent eyes of adoring little
children, to whom she is a being that can do no wrong, will be a meet
punishment for an infinitely greater fault. Meanwhile the man is _in all
probability_ in every way a gainer by the woman's silence, for doubtless
he is doubly dear to her for the very fact that the first man treated
her badly, and she may perhaps be a better wife, a stronger and sweeter
woman, a more capable mother, by reason of the suffering she has
undergone.

Now let no maliciously obtu