ot be even happier? He
forgets to tell himself that they are happy because no tie binds
them--nay, he says secretly in his heart that that tie is the only thing
wanting to make their felicity perfect. Now, it is too late. The world
knows the truth--marriage can never whitewash Virginia in society's
eyes--no future can condone the crime of the past. He has settled every
farthing he has in the world upon her--no mean fortune--he loads her
with gifts--he is perpetually thinking of her pleasure and amusement,
and yet, for ever, the load of his debt to her weighs down his soul.

And Virginia? Paul is all in all to her; he is her heart, her soul, her
conscience, and yet he cannot shield her from the fate which he has
brought upon her. What must inevitably be the sufferings of a proud and
pure-minded woman, who knows herself to be an object of scorn to her
sex? How would a man, naturally honorable and high-minded, feel, if, in
some fatal moment, he had been tempted to commit a forgery, or take an
unfair advantage at cards, and was afterwards shunned by every man
friend; thrust out of every club, banned utterly from the society of his
fellows, except those with whom it would revolt him to associate? This
is the only case that can parallel that of a woman who has lost the
world for a man's sake; and men who have a difficulty in realizing how
great is the sacrifice they compel or accept from a woman, would do well
to consider this.

Virginia suffered many a bitter pang when she showed herself in public
with Philip. She quivered under the open stare, or the look askance of
members of her sex; if she showed a brave front, it was that of the
Spartan boy! Philip was particularly fond of the opera and the play; he
would not have gone without her; so she accompanied him, and made no
demur. Of course every relation and friend she had in the world shunned
her as though she were a leper, which indeed, morally, she was in their
eyes. She loved society; no woman was more calculated to shine in it,
and from this she was cut off. True, they constantly entertained
brilliant and clever men, whose conversation and company were very
agreeable to her; but, however much a woman may like, may even prefer
the society of men, it is a bitter thought to her that she cannot
command that of her own sex. And, though men treated her with even a
greater and more delicate courtesy than they would perhaps have shown
their own women, Virginia was none the less