The Contrite Heart

The Contrite Heart is a powerful novel that portrays, in a vivid way, how beautiful young love between a young man and woman were crushed through parental Victorian prejudices. The story then moves forward to the woman's eventual conventional marriage to another man when her sweetheart moves away. We learn how this marriage was completely devoid of mutually satisfying physical love, which drove her to having an affair, and the subsequent guilt, which laid a heavy burden upon her. The story is woven around her Christian ministry and how the weight of guilt made her decide to consider becoming a nun after the death of her husband.