Should She Have Left Him? — page 177: what you’re looking at

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164 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? tunity for an advantageous alliance,” said Adams. “You see, I’ve often talked with Elsie about this matter. You may blame Elsie for not insisting that she was already married. But they had persuaded her that she was not, that no real marriage had taken place, and she was so young and innocent, indeed, so ignorant, that she was wax in their hands. The truth is, Mr. Magrane, you can’t make a woman believe that a marriage is a marriage unless it ts solemnized by a clergyman. They don’t know and don’t care about the civil contract side of it. It is either a sacrament, or it is nothing. If you can persuade a woman to join you under the civil con- tract idea, you can go further and persuade her to join you without marriage of any kind. That’s what I have come to believe. I thought I had persuaded Elsie that a marriage by a magistrate was as good as any kind of a marriage, but deep down in her heart she didn’t believe it. She showed that, by teasing me for a marriage by a clergyman, the first four or five years. That was one of the troubles between us—the beginning of them, in fact. You see, Mr. Magrane, I couldn't consent to that. If I had, I would have admitted a doubt as to the regu- iarity of our previous civil marriage. Then logically I would have had to admit the priority of that Swiss marriage with Trescotte. But I couldn’t make Elsie see it. To be married over again by a clergy- man was the remedy for all ills.” “Ves,” replied the lawyer, much interested in the new tangle Adams was developing. “ You would % GOMMGIOO cS (GO)