The letter from Chairo--or rather the extract from it--which she sent to Iréné ran as follows:
"I could ask no one but you to believe how differently my own acts appear to me when I looked back upon them some weeks ago with the glamour that self-deception threw around them and when I hear them to-day coldly recited in the witness box. During the examination I have asked myself whether the witnesses I have heard testifying before the investigating committee were really telling about me, or were not rather telling of events which have happened only in a nightmare. And when I push my self-examination further, I see that the difference lies in this: At the time I prepared our forces for violence I was thinking of myself; now, I am thinking of you.
"I do not disguise from myself that the story narrated by more than a dozen witnesses regarding my actions prior to your acceptance of the mission, condemns me to an extent that makes the passage of an amnesty bill--so far as I am concerned--difficult if not impossible. The question, therefore, arises, What am I to do? I am perfectly prepared to take my punishment myself, but it almost makes me die to think that I am dragging you with me into disgrace. I have thought that probably I am at this moment the chief difficulty in the way of a conclusion of this business; that if I were not fighting for my own release, the others would be pardoned easily enough. I would willingly bear the brunt of it all were it not for you. My perplexity is, that in fighting for you I am fighting also for myself."
Iréné discussed the possibility of Lydia's return to the cloister with her colleagues, and the extract from Chairo's letter was read to them. Masters, also, was consulted; for his effort to defend Neaera's reputation had enlisted him against Chairo on the side of the cult, and he had, therefore, been occasionally admitted to their counsels. It was finally decided that in view of Chairo's present attitude--the sincerity of which very few were disposed to doubt--and in view of the course Lydia proposed to adopt, she should be readmitted to retreat in the cloister, though it was deemed wise to give as little publicity to this return as possible.