If the struggle is prolonged, if the unhappy woman passes her life in efforts to conceal a sorrow caused by her dishonour, and valiantly resists the commission of a second fault, the man is irritated, and revolts against these pruderies which wound his self-love and his eager and brutal passion to the quick; for one last time he reviles her virtue, her sorrows, and her courage by saying to this miserable woman that her return to high principles is somewhat tardy. Frenzied by a base desire for revenge, he at once rushes with his cynical nature to make a notorious display of some other intrigue. He has been loved, he is still beloved! A virtuous and beautiful woman has jeopardised, for his sake, her happiness, her future, and that of her children! while he basely recoils from the least sacrifice. How comes it that this man is so worthless, and yet so worshipped? Because woman loves man more for the qualities she attributes to him, and with which her sensitive nature adorns him, than for those he really possesses. If, on the contrary, by a rare exception, a man realises all that is saintly and beautiful in this remorse, if he endeavours to comfort the sorrow of which he is the origin, the woman's gentleness and resignation may prove for her another pitfall. Catherine,--will she be pursued by incessant remorse? Like those women who, from an insatiable yearning for sympathy, or, with the chastity of sorrow, conceal their woes, and make only a display of their joys, will Catherine leave me in ignorance of the anguish she suffers? Knowing her as I do, I believe, after I have seen Irene, and gathered from her the substance of her conversation with her mother, I shall be able to divine Catherine's sentiments towards me. Hence I look forward with eager impatience to the child's visit. Heaven be praised! I see her running, holding in her hand a bouquet of roses. My heart did not deceive me; Catherine sends it to me. She forgives me my happiness. [Footnote 6: Arthur, according to his custom, introduces here some fragments from his journal, interrupted after leaving Khios, and doubtless, resumed on his arrival at the Grove. The preceding chapters are intended to fill the gap separating the two periods, during which time Arthur appears to have neglected to keep his memorandum.] CHAPTER XXV A WOMAN IN POLITICS Here come to an end the fragments of the journal I formerly wrote at the Grove. During the four months which followed Catherine's confession of her love, and which we passed in this total isolation, my life was so engrossed by the delights of our ever growing love that I had neither time nor inclination to make a record of emotions so entrancing. Catherine confessed to me that she had felt greatly attracted to me ever since our departure from Khios.