But she stretched out her arms to him, and drew him to
her bosom. Her pity for the misery which could have led him to behave so
ill, joined to her sympathy in the distressing repentance which she did
not doubt must have already begun, for she knew her husband, made her
treat him much as she treated her wretched Corney. It went deep to the
man's heart. In the deep sense of degredation that had seized him--not
for striking his son, who, he said, and said over and over to himself,
entirely deserved it, but for striking a woman, be she who she
might--his wife's embrace was like balm to a stinging wound. But it was
only when, through Hester's behaviour to her and the words that fell
from her, he came to know who she was, that the iron, the beneficent
spear-head of remorse, entered his soul. Strange that the mere fact of
our knowing _who a person is_, should make such a difference in the
way we think of and behave to that person! A person is a person just the
same, whether one of the few of our acquaintances or not, and his claim
on us for all kinds of humanities just the same. Our knowledge of any
one is a mere accident in the claim, and can at most only make us feel
it more.
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