If you come to think of it, that was as horrid and unnatural; it is a worse thing to desecrate the life of a living man than the death of a dead one.

I stand condemned as much as you, Eliza; but don't you go on now to add to one unnatural deed another as bad." "Why did you do it ?" asked Eliza, drawn, wondering, from the thought of herself.
"I thought I could not bear poverty and the crowd of children at home, and that fortune and rank would give me all I wanted; and the reason I didn't go through with it was that through his generosity I tasted all the advantages in gifts and social distinction before the wedding day, and I found it wasn't worth what I was giving for it, just as you will find some day that all you can gain in the way you are going now is not worth the disagreeableness, let alone the wrong, of the wrong-doing." "You think that because you are high-minded," said Eliza, beginning again in a nervous way to sort the linen.
"So are you, Eliza." Miss Rexford wondered whether she was true or false in saying it, whether it was the merest flattery to gain an end or the generous conviction of her heart.

She did not know.

The most noble truths that we utter often seem to us doubtfully true.
Now Sophia felt that what Eliza had said was only the fact--that it was very sad that Mr.Bates should go ill and alone to his lonely home, but that it could not be helped.

To whatever degree of repentance and new resolution Eliza might be brought, Sophia saw no way whatever of materially helping Bates; but she urged the girl to go and visit him, and say such kind and penitent things as might be in her power to say, before he set forth on his melancholy journey.
"No," said Eliza, "I won't go"; and this was all that could be obtained from her.
The visit was at an end.