to me."
In Mrs. Earle, conventional feminine instincts were apt, before she had time to think, to get the upper hand of her set theories. "You, poor, poor child," she cried extending her arms.
Selma had not intended to weep. Still the opportunity was convenient, and her nerves were on edge. She found herself sobbing with her head on Mrs. Earle's, bosom, and telling her sad story.
"He was never good enough for you. I have always said so," Mrs. Earle murmured stroking her hair.
"I ought to have known from the first that it was impossible for us to be happy. Why did I ever marry him? He said he loved me, and I let myself be badgered into it," Selma answered through her tears. "Well, it's all over now," she added, sitting up and drying her eyes. "He has given me back my liberty. I am a free woman."
"Yes, dear, if you are perfectly sure of yourself, there is only one course to pursue. Only you should consider the matter solemnly. Perhaps in a few days, after he has apologized and shown proper contrition, you might feel willing to give him another chance."
Selma was unprepared for Mrs. Earle's sentimentality. "Surely," she exclaimed with tragic earnestness, "you wouldn't have me live with him after what occurred? Contrition? He said everything he could think of to get me to stay, but I made my decision then and there."
Mrs. Earle put her own handkerchief to her eyes. "Women have forgiven such things; but I respect you all the more for not being weak. I know how you feel. It is hard to do, but if I had it to do over again, I would act just the same—just the same. It's a serious responsibility to encourage any one to desert a home, but under the circumstances I would not live with him another minute, my child—not another minute." Thereupon Mrs. Earle protruded her bosom to celebrate the triumph of justice in her own mental processes over conventional and maudlin scruples. "You will apply for a divorce, I suppose?"
"I have not considered that. All I care for is never to see him again."
"Oh yes, you must get a divorce. It is much better, you know. In my case I couldn't, for he did nothing public. A divorce settles matters, and puts you back where you were before. You might wish some day to marry again."
"I have had enough of marriage."
"It isn't any harm to be a free woman—free in the eye of the law as well as of conscience. I know an excellent lawyer—a Mr. Lyons, a sympathetic and able man. Besides your husband is bound to support you. You must get alimony."
"I wouldn't touch a dollar of his money," Selma answered with scorn. "I intend to support myself. I shall write—work."
"Of course you will, dear; and it will be a boon and a blessing to me to have you in our ranks—one of the new army of self-supporting, self-respecting women. I suppose you are right. I have never had a sixpence. But your husband deserves to be punished. Perhaps it is punishment enough to lose you."
"He will get over that. It is enough for me," she exclaimed, ardently, after a dreamy pause, "that I am separated from him forever—that I am free—free—free."
A night's sleep served to intensify Selma's determination, and she awoke clearly of the opinion that a divorce was desirable. Why remain fettered by a bare legal tie to one who was a husband only in name? Accordingly, in company with Mrs. Earle, she visited the office of James O. Lyons, and took the initiatory steps to dissolve the marriage.
Mr. Lyons was a large, full-bodied man of thirty-five, with a fat, cleanly-shaven, cherubic countenance, an aspect of candor, and keen, solemn eyes. His manner was impressive and slightly pontificial; his voice resonant and engaging. He knew when to joke and when to be grave as an owl. He wore in every-day life a shiny, black frock-coat, a standing collar, which yawned at the throat, and a narrow, black tie. His general effect was that of a cross between a parson and a shrewd Yankee—a happy suggestion of righteous, plain, serious-mindedness, protected against the wiles of human society—and able to protect others—by a canny intelligence. For a young man he had already a considerable clientage. A certain class of people, notably the hard-headed, God-fearing, felt themselves safe in his hands. His magnetic yet grave manner of conducting business pleased Benham, attracting also both the distressed and the bilious portions of the community, and the farmers from the surrounding country. As Mrs. Earle informed Selma, he was in sympathy with all progressive and stimulating ideas, and he already figured in the newspapers politically, and before the courts as a friend of the masses, and a fluent advocate of social reforms. His method of handling Selma's case was smooth. To begin with, he was sympathetic within proper limits, giving her tacitly to understand that, though as a man and brother, he deplored the necessity of extreme measures, he recognized that she had made up her mind, and that compromise was out of the question. To put it concisely, his manner was grieved, but practical. He told her that he would represent to Babcock the futility of contesting a cause, which, on the evidence, must be hopeless, and that, in all probability, the matter could be disposed of easily and without publicity. He seemed to Selma a very sensible and capable man, and it was agreeable to her to feel that he appreciated that, though divorce in the abstract was deplorable, her experience justified and called for the protection of the law.
In the meantime Babcock was very unhappy, and was casting about for a method to induce his wife to return. He wrote to her a pitiful letter, setting forth once more the sorry facts in the best light which he could bring to bear on them, and implored her forgiveness. He applied to her aunt, Mrs. Farley, and got her to supplement his plea with her good-natured intervention. "There are lots of men like that," she confided to Selma, "and he's a kind, devoted creature." When this failed, he sought Rev. Mr. Glynn as a last resort, and, after he had listened to a stern and fervid rating from the clergyman on the lust of the flesh, he found his pastor on his side. Mr. Glynn was opposed to divorce on general ecclesiastical principles; moreover, he had been educated under the law of England, by which a woman cannot obtain a divorce from her husband for the cause of adultery unless it be coupled with cruelty—a clever distinction between the sexes, which was doubtless intended as a cloak for occasional lapses on the part of man. It was plain to him, as a Christian and as a hearty soul, that there had been an untoward accident—a bestial fault, a soul-debasing carnal sin, but still an accident, and hence to be forgiven by God and woman. It was his duty to interfere; and so, having disciplined the husband, he essayed the more delicate matter of propitiating the wife. And he essayed it without a thought of failure.
"I'm afraid she's determined to leave me, and that there's not much hope," said Babcock, despondently, as he gripped the clergyman's hand in token of his gratitude.
"Nonsense, my man," asserted Mr. Glynn briskly. "All she needs is an exhortation from me, and she will take you back."
Selma was opposed to divorce in theory. That is, she had accepted on trust the traditional prejudice against it as she had accepted Shakespeare and Boston. But theory stood for nothing in her regard before the crying needs of her own experience. She had not the least intention of living with her husband again. No one could oblige her to do that. In addition, the law offered her a formal escape from his control and name. Why not avail herself of it? She recollected, besides, that her husband's church recognized infidelity as a lawful ground of release from the so-called sacrament of marriage. This had come into her mind as an additional sanction to her own decision. But it had not contributed to that decision. Consequently, when she was confronted in Mrs. Earle's lodgings by the errand of Mr. Glynn, she felt that his coming was superfluous. Still, she was glad of the opportunity to measure ideas with him in a thorough interview free from interruption.
Mr. Glynn's confidence was based on his intention to appeal to the ever womanly quality of pity. He expected to encounter some resistance, for indisputably here was a woman whose sensibilities had been justly and severely shocked—a woman of finer tissue than her husband, as he had noted in other American couples. She was entitled to her day in court—to a stubborn, righteous respite of indignation. But he expected to carry the day in the end, amid a rush of tears, with which his own might be mingled. He trusted to what he regarded as the innate reluctance of the wife to abandon the man she loved, and to the leaven of feminine Christian charity.
As a conscientious hater of sin, he did not attempt to minimize Babcock's