When people get it into their heads that they are being specially
favoured by the Almighty, they had better as a general rule mind their
p's and q's, and when they think they see the devil's drift with
more special clearness, let them remember that he has had much more
experience than they have, and is probably meditating mischief.
Already during supper the thought that in Ellen at last he had found
a woman whom he could love well enough to wish to live with and
marry had flitted across his mind, and the more they had chatted the
more reasons kept suggesting themselves for thinking that what might
be folly in ordinary cases would not be folly in his.
He must marry someone; that was already settled. He could not
marry a lady; that was absurd. He must marry a poor woman. Yes, but
a fallen one? Was he not fallen himself? Ellen would fall no more.
He had only to look at her to be sure of this. He could not live
with her in sin, not for more than the shortest time that could elapse
before their marriage; he no longer believed in the supernatural
element of Christianity, but the Christian morality at any rate was
indisputable. Besides, they might have children, and a stigma would
rest upon them.
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