I Forbid the Banns! — page 367: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ON THE BEGINNING OF A QUEST. 357 admit that I have been a scoundrel—anything—if it will only bring her back !” ‘Then she has left you?” said Mr. Hardy quietly. ‘““And she has not come here?” said Julian. “You may rest assured of that, Mr. Charlton. I cannot say that I am surprised to learn that you have separated. Separation was inevitable. You may perhaps remember that I said as much to you under your own roof. I need not inquire from you how the separation has come about. I know it. The Turks are supposed to be unusually jealous of their wives. They are wise; they shut them up in their Own apartments, and thereby they always feel that their wives are bound to them by even a stronger tie than that of a legal marriage. ‘The husbands have thus few oppor- tunities of being jealous. We English donot believe in the stone walkand iron bar union ; but we manage to minimize the possibilities of jealousy by making the marriage cere- mony a religious one, and causing the vows of fidelity to be uttered before God. This is the more civilized way. The fact that the bond of marriage is usually regarded as a sacred one causes us—most of us, at any rate—to feel that our wives are bound to us by a tie that cannot be broken with impunity. There was no such tie in your union with my wife’s niece, Mr. Charlton. You had not a day’s easi- ness of mind with her.”’ ‘ All this may be quite true, Mr. Hardy,” said Charlton. “JT tell you I did not come here to discuss the marriage question with you or anyone else, but to find my—to find her—and to persuade her to return with me. She must return with me; I cannot live without her.” He was walking up and down the room—the promenade was not an extensive one—and now he stood before Mr. Hardy with clenched hands. ‘Tt is sometimes the case that when a man has lived for some months with a woman—some years even (but CONMICLYOOl KS. EC)