When other meetings had followed, when the confession of her love had escaped her, he took the one course of all others (took it innocently and unconsciously), which was most dangerous to them both.

His frankness and his sense of honor forbade him to deceive her: he opened his heart and told her the truth.
She was a generous, impulsive girl; she had no home ties strong enough to plead with her; she was passionately fond of him--and he had made that appeal to her pity which, to the eternal honor of women, is the hardest of all appeals for them to resist.

She saw, and saw truly, that she alone stood between him and his ruin.

The last chance of his rescue hung on her decision.

She decided; and saved him.
"Let me not be misunderstood; let me not be accused of trifling with the serious social question on which my narrative forces me to touch.