"And now, as to your friend. Comfort her. The poor girl is no more
guilty than if a traction engine had run over her or a wild beast
had broken on her out of his cage. She must not torture herself
any longer. It is not right, it is not good. Our body is not the
only part of use that is subject to diseases, and you must save
her from a disease of the soul.
"As to whether she should tell her husband, I can have but one
opinion. I say, Yes, by all means. In the court of conscience the
sin, where it exists, is not wholly or mainly in the act. That has
been pardoned in secret as well as in public. God pardoned it in
David. Christ pardoned it in the woman of Jerusalem. But the
concealment, the lying and duplicity, these cannot be pardoned
until they have been confessed.
"Another point, which your pure mind, dearest, has never thought
of. There is the other man. Think of the power he holds over your
friend. If he still wishes to possess her in spite of herself, he
may intimidate her, he may threaten to reveal all to her husband.
This would make her miserable, and perhaps in the long run, her
will being broken, it might even make her yield. Or the man may
really tell her husband in order to insult and outrage both of
them. If he does so, where is she? Is her husband to believe her
story then?
"To meet these dangers let her speak out now. Let her trust her
husband's love and tell him everything. If he is a man he will
think, 'Only her purity has prompted her to tell me,' and he will
love her more than ever. Some momentary spasm he may feel. Every
man wishes to believe that the flower he plucks is flawless. But
his higher nature will conquer his vanity and he will say, 'She
loves me, I love her, she is innocent, and if any blow is to be
struck at her it must go through me.'
"My love to you, dearest. Your friend must be a true woman, and it
was very sweet of you to be so tender with her. It was noble of
you to be severe with her too, and to make her go through
purgatorial fires. That is what good women always do with the
injured of their own sex. It is a kind of pledge and badge of
their purity, and it is a safeguard and shield, whatever the
unthinking may say. I love you for your severity to the poor
soiled dove, my dear one, just as much as I love you for your
tenderness. It shows me how rightly I judged the moral elevation
of your soul, your impeccability, your spirit of fire and heart of
gold. Until we meet again, my darling, D. R."