"I wish you would get rid of your false, gloomy thoughts about yourself
as easily as you have got rid of your false, gloomy clothing," he said,
passionately. "The mother and husband who made your life what it was are
both where they can never hurt you again. Your character they never did
touch, except in the most superficial way. When you told me your story,
that night in the woods, you tried to make me think that you did
voluntarily--what you did. You lied to me. I thought so then. I know it
now. You were flattered and bullied, cajoled and coerced--a girl scarcely
older than my sister Edith, whom we consider a child, whose father is
distressed to even think of her as marriageable. It is time to stop
feeling repentance for sins you never committed, and to look at yourself
sanely and happily--if you must be introspective at all. No braver,
lovelier, purer woman ever lived, or one more obviously intended to be a
wife and mother. The sooner you become both, the better."
There was a moment of tense silence.
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