Explore "A Rogue's Tragedy" by Bernard Capes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
And Yolande of the white hands! How was it faring with her, the lily gathered to perfume a Saturnalia, the victim of as heartless a casuistry as ever committed a clean virgin to outrage?
When she first heard of di Rocco's fate, and of the unspeakable treachery on which it had foreclosed, she came for the moment as near a fall from "grace" as Louis-Marie himself. That duty to a father must be held the paramount duty, his will the household law, his judgment the ruling wisdom, nature and religion in her had once held for the first principle of conduct. Honour, self-respect, sworn faith -- these, pious recommendations in themselves, were, if pledged without a father's sanction, vain credentials. His curse could blight them all -- convert their virtues into sins. From God, the primal Word, had come, in straight succession, his power to bless or ban. She had believed in this his right so truly as to cede her whole heart to him for immolation on the altar he had raised, letting it break rather than incur his malediction.