You defend him with just the same ardour and almost the same words with which I have often defended him already. It is no crime to have loved; much less still is it a crime to have been loved. But fickleness is a crime. SARA. Not always; for often, I believe, it is rendered excusable by the objects of one's love, which seldom deserve to be loved for ever. MARWOOD. Miss Sampson's doctrine of morals does not seem to be of the strictest. SARA. It is true; the one by which I judge those who themselves confess that they have taken to bad ways is not of the strictest. Nor should it be so. For here it is not a question of fixing the limits which virtue marks out for love, but merely of excusing the human weakness that has not remained within those limits and of judging the consequences arising therefrom by the rules of wisdom. If, for example, a Mellefont loves a Marwood and eventually abandons her; this abandonment is very praiseworthy in comparison with the love itself. It would be a misfortune if he had to love a vicious person for ever because he once had loved her. MARWOOD. But do you know this Marwood, whom you so confidently call a vicious person? SARA. I know her from Mellefont's description. MARWOOD. Mellefont's? Has it never occurred to you then that Mellefont must be a very invalid witness in his own affairs? SARA. I see now, Madam, that you wish to put me to the test. Mellefont will smile, when you repeat to him how earnestly I have defended him. MARWOOD. I beg your pardon, Miss Sampson, Mellefont must not hear anything about this conversation. You are of too noble a mind to wish out of gratitude for a well-meant warning to estrange from him a relation, who speaks against him only because she looks upon his unworthy behaviour towards more than one of the most amiable of her sex as if she herself had suffered from it. SARA. I do not wish to estrange anyone, and would that others wished it as little as I do. MARWOOD. Shall I tell you the story of Marwood in a few words? SARA. I do not know. But still--yes, Madam! but under the condition that you stop as soon as Mellefont returns. He might think that I had inquired about it myself; and I should not like him to think me capable of a curiosity so prejudicial to him. MARWOOD.