Such a woman, pure, chaste, and untouched, had been Sally Bishop.
But to one man alone can a woman be this, and then, only so long as
she remains with him. Once he has cast her off, when once she is
discarded, she becomes to all who know her, a woman of easy virtue,
prey to the first hungry hands that are ready to claim her. This,
in an age when the binding sacrament of matrimony is being held up
to ridicule both in theory and in practice, is perhaps the only
reasonable argument that can be utilized in its defence. It is surely
not pedantic to hope that the purity of some women is still essential
for the race, and it is surely not illogical to suppose that marriage
is the means, in such cases as that of Sally Bishop, to this humble
end.
Pure, certainly, she had been, even in the eyes of such a man as
Devenish; but in the light of a discarded mistress, all her virtue
vanished. Innate in the mind of the worst of men is the timid
hesitation before he brands a virtuous woman; but when once he knows
that she has fallen, conscience lifts, like a feather on the breeze.
With a light heart, he reaps the harvest of tares which some other
than himself must be blamed for sowing, and with a light heart he
goes his way, immune to remorse.
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