He would go on suffering for years before he would send his soul to purgatory by such an act.

He believed in damnation.

He had lived an honourable, upright life and he maintained that his soul was entitled to the salvation his body had earned for it by its resistance to the evils of the flesh.

What, said he, could be more incompatible with a lifelong observance of God's laws than the commission of an act for which there could be no forgiveness, what more terrible than going into the presence of his maker with sin as his guide and advocate?
His last breath of life drawn in sin! Day after day he whispered his wily arguments, and always she fled in horror.

Her every hour was a nightmare, sleeping or waking.