The heroine's conception is its exact counterpart, and exactly fits it.

The heroine as completely as the hero has freed herself from any discernment between good and evil.

She recoils from abnormal impurity no more than from normal, and the climax of the book is her full indulgence in both.
Now here we have a specimen of love raised to intensity, but divested as far as possible of the religious element.

I say divested as far as possible, because even here, as I shall prove hereafter, the process is not complete, and something of religion is still left fermenting.

But it is quite complete enough for our present purpose.