In the first place neither science nor sense will, I think, agree with Mr. Lilly’s estimate of “the surpassing excellence and sacrosanct character of virginal chastity.” Virginity, _in itself_ and apart from all qualifying circumstances, is the reverse of excellent and admirable. It means death, not life; it violates nature. What is really sound doctrine in this connexion is not the sanctity and excellence of virginity, but the deep degradation of making sexual relations a subject of barter. Wherever this prevails, whatever the church and the law may or may not have had to do with the transaction, the beauty and romance of life is blighted and destroyed. There is no conquest of culture which should be guarded more devotedly than the dignity and sweetness which are brought into the relations of man and woman by love, as the great poets have understood that word, love moving in its guarded circle of mutual trust and intimacy. A life is well lost in defence of this most sacred treasure of the spirit. Isabella and Monna Vanna both felt this truth in the depths of their nature as all good women do. Yet absolute laws of action can rarely, if ever, be laid down to cover every individual case. One can conceive either of them deciding as Monna Vanna actually did. But in the realm of high tragedy which we are now dealing with, where principles and actions have a simplicity and integrity rarely found in common life, it must be felt that neither of them could have taken up life again as if nothing had happened. Had they recognized that there were higher reasons stringent enough to compel them to tread the way to that sacrifice, they would, I think, like the Roman Lucretia, have solemnly marked it with their life-blood as an expiation, and as a warning, were it only to Prinzivalle or Angelo, that such a thing must not be done save at the most terrible cost that man can pay. For Isabella, then, the problem would practically resolve itself into the question whether she should surrender her own life for that of a single worthless relative. There was no moral obligation on her to do that. Had she loved him so intensely as to go willingly to her doom for his sake, no one could have blamed her; no one could blame her if she refused, and bade him summon up his manhood to die for his own sin.