She saw it was
reasonable: what fellowship can light have with darkness, or love with
starvation? "A woman really in love," she went on, "is ready to give up
everything, yes, my dear, _everything_ for the man she loves. She
who is not equal to that, does not know what love is."
"Suppose he should prove unworthy of her?"
"That would be nothing, positively nothing. If she had once learned to
love him she would see no fault in him."
"_Whatever_ faults he might have?"
"Whatever faults: love has no second thoughts."
"Suppose he were to show himself regardless of her best welfare--caring
for her only as an adjunct to his display?"
"If she loved him, I only say _if she loved him_, she would be
proud to follow in his triumph. His glory is hers."
"Whether it be real or not?"
"If he counts it so. A woman who loves gives herself to her husband to
be moulded by him."
"I fear that is the way men think of us," said Hester, sadly; "and no
doubt there are women whose behaviour would justify them in it. With all
my heart I say a woman ought to be ready to die for the man she loves;
that is a matter of course; she cannot really love him if she would not;
but that she should fall in with all his thoughts, feelings, and
judgments whatever, even such as in others she would most heartily
despise; that she should act as if her husband and not God made her, and
his whims, instead of the lovely will of him who created man and woman,
were to be to her the bonds of her being--that surely no woman could
grant who had not first lost her reason.
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