Colonel Mordaunt declared that every day seemed to increase her resemblance to Adeline in expression and manner; and in conduct his reason told him that she was her superior; nor could he for a moment hesitate to prefer as a wife, Emma Douglas who had never erred, to Adeline who had. Colonel Mordaunt felt, to borrow the words of a celebrated female writer,[1] that 'though it is possible to love and esteem a woman who has expiated the faults of her youth by a sincere repentance; and though before God and man her errors may be obliterated; still there exists one being in whose eyes she can never hope to efface them, and that is her lover or her husband.' He felt that no man of acute sensibility can be happy with a woman whose recollections are not pure: she must necessarily be jealous of the opinion which he entertains of her; and he must be often afraid of speaking, lest he utter a sentiment that may wound and mortify her. Besides, he was, on just grounds, more desirous of marrying a woman whom he 'admired, than one whom he forgave;' and therefore, while he addressed Emma, he no longer regretted Adeline. 1: Madame de Stael, _Recueil de Morceaux détachés_, page 208. In short, he at length ceased to talk of Emma's resemblance to Adeline, but seemed to admire her wholly for her own sake; and having avowed his attachment, and been assured of Emma's in return, by Major Douglas, he came back to England in the ensuing autumn, the happy husband of one of the best of women. CHAPTER XXV We left Adeline preparing to address Mrs Mowbray and recommend her child to her protection:--but being deeply impressed with the importance of the task which she was about to undertake, she timidly put it off from day to day; and having convinced herself that it was her duty to endeavour to excite her husband to repentance, and make him acknowledge Editha as his legitimate child, she determined to write to him before she addressed her mother, and also to bid a last farewell to Colonel Mordaunt, whose respectful attachment had soothed some of the pangs which consciousness of her past follies had inflicted, and whose active friendship deserved her warmest acknowledgment. Little did she think the fatal effect which one instance of his friendly zeal in her cause had had on Berrendale; unconscious was she that the husband, whose neglect she believed to be intentional, great as were his crimes against her, was not guilty of the additional crime of suffering her to pine in poverty without making a single inquiry concerning her, but was convinced that both she and her child were no longer in existence.