That passion of purity which fired Isabel's speech was the breath of Emily's life.

She knew well that many, and women too, would spare no condemnation of what they would call her heartless selfishness; she knew that the paltriest considerations of worldly estate are deemed sufficient to exact from a woman the sacrifice now demanded of her.

That was no law to Emily.

The moral sense which her own nature had developed must here alone control her.

Purity, as she understood it--the immaculate beauty of the soul--was her religion: if other women would die rather than deny the object of their worship, to her the ideal of chastity was worth no less perfect a zeal.