But although I
had not written to her, no small part of the infinite sadness
that had fallen upon my life was the shadow of her destiny.
Sweet, wine-loving Judith! How many times did I picture her
sitting pinched and wistful in the little tin mission church at
Hoxton! Had I, Marcus Ordeyne, condemned her to that
penitentiary? Who can hold the balance of morals so truly as to
decide?
At last I received a letter from her on the anniversary of our
parting. She had found salvation in a strange thing which she
called duty. "I am fulfilling an appointed task," she wrote,
"and the measure of my success is the measure of my happiness. I
am bringing consolation to a wayward and tormented spirit. A
year has swept aside the petty feminine vanities, the opera-
glasses, so to speak, through which a woman complacently views
her influence over a man, and it has cleared my vision. A year
has proved beyond mortal question that without me this wayward
and tormented spirit would fail. I hold in my hands the very
soul of a man.
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