So, perhaps, it
was with Edward Ashburnham.
Or, perhaps, it wasn't. No, I rather think it wasn't. It is difficult to
figure out. I have said that the Kilsyte case eased the immediate
tension for him and Leonora. It let him see that she was capable of
loyalty to him; it gave her her chance to show that she believed in
him. She accepted without question his statement that, in kissing
the girl, he wasn't trying to do more than administer fatherly
comfort to a weeping child. And, indeed, his own
world--including the magistrates--took that view of the case.
Whatever people say, one's world can be perfectly charitable at
times . . . But, again, as I have said, it did Edward a great deal of
harm.
That, at least, was his view of it. He assured me that, before that
case came on and was wrangled about by counsel with all sorts of
dirty-mindedness that counsel in that sort of case can impute, he
had not had the least idea that he was capable of being unfaithful
to Leonora. But, in the midst of that tumult--he says that it came
suddenly into his head whilst he was in the witness-box--in the
midst of those august ceremonies of the law there came suddenly
into his mind the recollection of the softness of the girl's body as
he had pressed her to him.
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