to her reputation, and some consideration for her poor children whom she left to the care of their father's relatives; some pity for her mother, whose prospects were so materially altered by the second marriage; but Lady Eveline had shown none; she had married Gerald Staunton with this indecent haste, and had also injured most materially the prospects of the man she loved by the folly and impropriety of which she had been guilty.
But Lady Eveline, with her ill-regulated conscience, had one remorse hanging heavy upon her. She felt deep compunction for having married one man when she so entirely loved another. This is the greatest sin a woman can commit, but it is the man whom she marries without love who is most wronged, and not the man she gives up. The latter may find some compensation in a new attachment; his grief may be bitter at the time, but it is susceptible of various consolations; whereas the former is chained for life, and cannot go elsewhere for domestic happiness. But Eveline did not see that she had been guilty with regard to her husband; she thought he might have known how little affection she felt, and might have withdrawn; she had never told him that he had her heart; and as all he wanted was a noble
