Should She Have Left Him? — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

180 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? alone swayed Trescotte, and before that all others were small; Trescotte wanted the cloud upon the marriage certificate of Dorothy lifted; it was for Dorothy's sake, not hisown. Trescotte soon learned that Adams was half-hearted in his desire for a divorce from Elsie, and was deterred by fear of the scandal that would result from such a procedure; it was for Elsie’s sake, not his own. There were reserves upon the part of each which prevented them from getting close to the subject they dis cussed. Trescotte did not urge a restoration of relationship between Adams and Elsie which would make the common law marriage a fact, because there was the five months he had spent with Elsie, which seemed to him indelicate to call up. Adams did not show Trescotte that the bar to restoration was the boy, the consequence of that five months, be- cause Trescotte did not have knowledge of the child. So the conference came to naught. Adams brought it to an end by saying: “Well, Mr. Trescotte, we're agreed upon one thing. We don’t want our wives involved in scandal. [I'll promise that whatever course I pursue will involve no scandal. I suppose I could sue for divorce on the ground of abandonment, and arrange to have the validity of the first marriage to come up some way for settlement. Frankly, I should like to have the matter settled, for my own sake as well as yours, and I had just as soon see the validity of it established as not, for if it was, it would be no bar to divorce proceedings.” GOMMGIOO cS (GO)