Evelyn remembered that when she had sent Owen away before, he had said, “s****l continence at best is not the whole of morality; from your use of the word one would think that it was.” But for her the s****l conscience was the entire conscience—she had no temptation to steal. There was lying, but she was never tempted to tell lies except for one reason; she could not think of herself telling a lie for any other. To her the s****l sin included all the others. She turned her head aside, for the bitterness of her conscience was unendurable, and she vowed that, whatever happened, she would speak the truth if Owen questioned her again. She could never bring herself to tell such horrible falsehoods again.
These revulsions of feeling alternated with remembrances of Owen’s tenderness; fugitive se
