It was her first
ball--it was the first time she had ever met with a man who had the
breeding, the manners and the conversation of a gentleman. Are these
excuses for her, which I have no right to make? If we have any human
feeling for human weakness, surely not!
"The meeting of that night decided their future. When other meetings had
followed, when the confession of her love had escaped her, he took the
one course of all others (took it innocently and unconsciously), which
was most dangerous to them both. His frankness and his sense of honor
forbade him to deceive her: he opened his heart and told her the truth.
She was a generous, impulsive girl; she had no home ties strong enough
to plead with her; she was passionately fond of him--and he had made
that appeal to her pity which, to the eternal honor of women, is the
hardest of all appeals for them to resist. She saw, and saw truly, that
she alone stood between him and his ruin. The last chance of his rescue
hung on her decision. She decided; and saved him.
"Let me not be misunderstood; let me not be accused of trifling with the
serious social question on which my narrative forces me to touch.
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