I
don't know. I leave it to you. There is another point that worries
me a good deal in the aspects of this sad affair. Leonora says that,
in desiring that the girl should go five thousand miles away and
yet continue to love him, Edward was a monster of selfishness. He
was desiring the ruin of a young life. Edward on the other hand
put it to me that, supposing that the girl's love was a necessity to
his existence, and, if he did nothing by word or by action to keep
Nancy's love alive, he couldn't be called selfish. Leonora replied
that showed he had an abominably selfish nature even though his
actions might be perfectly correct. I can't make out which of them
was right. I leave it to you.
it is, at any rate, certain that Edward's actions were perfectly--were
monstrously, were cruelly--correct. He sat still and let Leonora
take away his character, and let Leonora damn him to deepest
hell, without stirring a finger. I daresay he was a fool; I don't see
what object there was in letting the girl think worse of him than
was necessary. Still there it is. And there it is also that all those
three presented to the world the spectacle of being the best of
good people.
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