IT IS THE
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 SCHOOL OF LAW 
 LIBRARY


 
 IT IS THE LAW, 
 
 A STORY OF 
 
 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 
 
 IN NEW YORK 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS EDGAR WILLSON. 
 
 \KW YORK & CHICAGO : 
 
 BELFOHD, CJvAIJKi: & COMPANY,
 
 fl 
 
 COPYRIGHTED, 1887. ALL BIGHTS KESERVED. 

 
 
 IT IS T H E L A W. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, 
 
 Prov. xii. 4. 
 
 u MY darling, I love you ; passionately, devotedly. 
 Fly with me, and we will find a home which we will 
 make a paradise on earth. My love, my life, with you 
 beside me, your love to strengthen me, I can carve out 
 a fortune to lay at your feet. You love me even as I 
 love you. Why should you hesitate, Mabelle ? " 
 
 She looked into the frank and handsome face, plead- 
 ing so earnestly, and smiled a little sadly and very 
 sweetly, as she answered slowly and with quaint pauses 
 between each sentence, in a manner all her own. 
 
 " No, Dick ; it is quite useless to urge anything of 
 that kind ; but I am willing to listen to anything you 
 have to say. The speaker is one and the listener is an- 
 other ; and what you have to say is a part of the story 
 we are making, is it not ? Haven't you stronger reasons 
 to urge. Something to really tempt me, Dick? " 
 
 " Do you need more, Mabelle, than our love ? Can you 
 not desire, even as I do, that we shall be all in all to 
 one another forgetting the world and by the world 
 forgot. Do you not wish, as I do, that the world held 
 only us two, and no more ? "
 
 6 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 She shook her head dreamily, her eyes closed. 
 
 " You would not kill the cook, would you, Dick ? 
 Say three, dear, or four, for we must have milk and 
 sugar, and I will say yes." There was not a suspicion 
 of chaff in the sweet far-away voice. 
 
 " Sweetheart, are you kind to me ? What is there lack- 
 ing in me or my love ? Tell me frankly. I never had 
 any experience before this, and I am not fluent of 
 speech ; but credit me with the full and honest love of 
 an honest man, even if I cannot express myself eloquent- 
 ly. Did you expect more? Do you want more ? Is not 
 love enough, or do you want words also ? " 
 
 " I really do not know. It is not a bit like the story- 
 books, Dick. There the lover rehearses for weeks it 
 don't say so, but he must and he sweeps the poor wife 
 off her feet with his burning words and passionate 
 pleadings, and she loses her head, and consents for a 
 few minutes to do .what she spends the remainder 
 of her life in regretting. You haven't rehearsed a 
 bit, if even you ever thought of it before ,' you 
 haven't really meant a word you said, though you 
 may have done as well as any one in real life ', 
 and you haven't tempted me in the least to be 
 wicked, Dick, when I really wanted to be tempted. Not 
 that I would yield, dear, for I couldn't be swept off 
 my feet ; and perhaps the fault is really mine but I 
 wanted to be tempted as much as you could tempt me, 
 because it's so horrible to be good just because you must. 
 I want to feel when I am good that it is because I 
 choose goodness. If I have no choice in the matter, 
 and must be good or must be wicked, I would much 
 prefer that the must should be wicked. Don't you feel 
 thut way sometimes, Dick ? "
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 7 
 
 Her hand had been laid on his as she began, and it 
 remained. 
 
 She was sitting on the stone fence of the little lane that 
 leads from the main road in front of Charlie Warren's to 
 the branch road that passes by Brookside, which her 
 friend Mrs. Carter hired every year at Coldspring. Mrs. 
 Smith had come on a brief visit to escape the racket of 
 the Fourth in the city, and Mrs. Carter's nephew and 
 she were returning from a walk over to the farm-house. 
 
 The nearly half-full moon shone directly through the 
 trees upon the two figures ; but on that lonely road 
 there are no chance passers after dusk, and it was now 
 nearly nine o'clock. 
 
 Where there are none to molest or make afraid, the 
 lover is ever bold. His arm passed around her waist. 
 
 l * You love me, Mabelle." 
 
 She loosed her imprisoned hands and put them on his 
 cheeks, turning his face so that she could look into it. 
 Then she answered his question with another. 
 
 u Why does it give me pleasure to have you ask the 
 question ? and why does it give you pleasure to have 
 me say so ? " 
 
 For reply, he bent and kissed her cheek (accurately 
 speaking, her ear, for she turned her head), and she 
 gently put him away ; but there was no anger in her 
 voice, only earnestness, as she said : 
 
 "Do not spoil my happiness, dear, by improprieties. If 
 you do, I will have to go home immediately. And I 
 want to stay here with you." 
 
 He kissed her hands, to which there was no objection, 
 and looked down at the slender but graceful figure just 
 budding into womanhood. She was not more than 
 eighteen at the most, and her face, clear-cut and spirit-
 
 8 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 ual, had a sad and dreamy loveliness that seemed to be- 
 long to some other life. It was the face of one who had 
 suffered and struggled and conquered and grown lovely 
 from the combat. In place of the boldness and self- 
 reliance so usual with self-restraint and self-government, 
 there was trust and doubt and a wistful tenderness. 
 No one would look into that sympathetic, refined face 
 for jest or gibe or scoff. Frankness and truth and 
 earnestness were unmistakably impressed upon it, and 
 behind these were slumbering powers of will and strength 
 of mind that she knew nothing of. 
 
 " And I wish to stay with you always, Mabelle. This 
 pleasure that you have learned to feel can grow, even as 
 it has grown, and a thousand times more. Why should 
 we feel it and enjoy it for a few brief minutes when we 
 can have it our whole lives long?" 
 
 " Love dies with the kiss, my Richard." 
 
 " Not ours." 
 
 " Yes, ours, and all love, love for man or love for 
 country, for humanity or for ourselves. All is but 
 
 Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves, 
 And grass that fades ere any of it be mown. 
 
 The garden god's bonds are the very lightest, mere 
 flax and tow, burned off by the very flame that passes 
 from heart to heart. Deny it not, Dick. You know 
 it to be true. Face the truth and fear not. Truth is 
 a sweet mistress, but only the very brave may serve 
 her." 
 
 The moonlight, her face, her mood, blended perfectly. 
 It was Proserpine sitting in her garden, crowned with 
 calm leaves, talking to a mortal who had strayed into 
 Hades. 
 
 He sat on a base stone and leaned his head against
 
 IT IS THE LA W, 9 
 
 her side. Her arm fell around his neck, and her hand 
 stroked his face. 
 
 " Mabelle, I want you for my own. I want you for 
 a wife. As I cannot have you legally, I want you 
 without the form. It will make no difference to me 
 what technicalities there may be. I will be your true 
 and faithful husband while life lasts." 
 
 " But it will make a great difference to me, Dick. I 
 am an honest woman. I never violated a law or com- 
 mandment, and so long as I live I never will. I shall 
 never do anything that will bring the faintest tinge of 
 shame to my cheek, or give any one reason for a sneer. 
 I made that resolution years ago ; it will be unbroken 
 when I die." 
 
 " But, my darling, we cannot continue this way all 
 our lives long ? " 
 
 " Why not, if we will ? " 
 
 And why not? The question confused him. 
 
 " Suppose we elope," she continued. " My husband 
 is also my uncle and guardian. For nearly three 
 years, until I am twenty-one, I will not be able to 
 get a cent from him. You have very little more than 
 your salary, enough to pay our passage to, and a few 
 weeks board where we are unknown ; but you have 
 splendid prospects and a bright career. Among 
 strangers, penniless, we would have to earn our bread 
 as best we could. Your life would be destroyed while you 
 remained with me. My sin would find me out, and I would 
 be a thing of scorn. For what, Richard ? for what ? Think 
 a moment. I am an old married woman. I have been six 
 years a wife. You are unmarried, but I hope that you 
 are not without some experience in the master passion of 
 humanity I will talk frankly with you. You know that
 
 10 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 ill a week, or a month, at the most, when the glamor had 
 passed away, you would regret the price you had paid 
 for past and never-to-be-recalled pleasure. If you do not 
 know it, I do. I am now satisfied and content with what 
 I have. I would have to accept disgrace to get what I do 
 not want. It is folly to wreck our lives for what you 
 would value for a week or two only, and I not at all. 
 You ask me, you urge me to elope, because you think 
 you are in honor bound to do it, because it is recognize^ 
 among men as the proper course to pursue under the 
 circumstances, and because you think I expect you to. 
 Really it is your duty to do so. You should give me the 
 privilege of flying if I wish disgrace. But you feel 
 secret relief when I decline the proposition and you 
 know that I certainly mea,n it. You appreciate the fact 
 that my acceptance would put you to the greatest em- 
 barassment. When you offer the price, you know you 
 are paying far more than it it is worth. Do not deny 
 it, Dick. Truth is a sweet mistress. You know that 
 what I say are her words, not mine." 
 
 " But, my darling, I love you, passionately, devotedly. 
 If I did not, what you say might be true. I cannot 
 count the cost and weigh every chance, in cold blood, 
 because I have no cold blood. No one could look into 
 your eyes and have a single drop un warmed. No one 
 could for half a minute hold you closely and not lose 
 his reason. My whole being cries out for you. I love 
 and long and yearn. It is the madness of fever. That 
 is the Truth that I must face and you also. That is 
 love. You know it. To hold you in my arms, to feel 
 your lips clinging to mine, your heart throbbing, beat 
 for beat, in unison with mine, to know if even for one 
 moment that you are not another, but myself, my soul,
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 11 
 
 I would at this instant give my life. It may be un- 
 wisdom, but it is love. It may be that in after years, 
 if my life were spared now to be taken then, it might 
 be dearer than it is now, and I would rue. It may be 
 that a week or a month afterward I might regret the 
 price paid for pleasures past and gone. But that is the 
 weakness of manhood and of love. It is true of all 
 things as well as love. To die like those whom Carrier 
 slew is all there is in life worth living. Now, to do 
 that, I too would at this moment give my soul." 
 
 There was a ring in his voice that thrilled her. Her 
 eyes shone brighter. For the first time this, the first 
 love of her life, seemed sweet though her own pulse 
 beat calmly and quietly, and no vibration of her own 
 responded to his wild chords except in the faintest of 
 overtones. 
 
 " Suppose, Dick, that you could have me for your 
 wife your legal, honest wife for three months, but at 
 the end of that time our marriage was to cease ; that I 
 died ; would you be any happier than if we were never 
 married?" 
 
 "Yes, unquestionably." 
 
 " Why ? I do not see how you or I could possibly 
 be any happier than we are now. I know you love me. 
 And I know what love is. You love me, and do not 
 know what love is, because you have never cared to 
 think about such things. I have thought about it for 
 years. It is the one subject of all true women's 
 thoughts. This, if you did but know it, my lover, is 
 the happiest moment of all our shanti, our rest in love, 
 when, we know that each is true and each can trust." 
 
 "And what is love, Main-lie ?" 
 
 "Pursuit, Dick; action for the mere pleasure of the
 
 12 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 action, whether you stalk a deer or stalk a woman not 
 ' the motion of the soul that tendeth to the end,' as we 
 were taught in school. It was a bishop who said so, but 
 he was only partly right seeing dimly and understand- 
 ing vaguely. There is no love without unceasing 
 action, without constant pursuit. Nellie wondered the 
 other day why Charles Reade called one of his heroes 
 ' the pursuer.' It is because the lover is a pursuer while 
 he remains a lover, and ceases to be the one when he 
 ceases to be the other. You wish to end the pursuit 
 by marriage. That would end your love for me, Dick, 
 as the death and quartering of the deer would end your 
 love for that particular hunt. You would soon be ready 
 to hunt another deer and another woman." 
 
 " Your logic is at fault, Mabelle. Shall lovers never 
 marry then, that love may abound? Shall women keep 
 their lovers always at arm's length that they may ever 
 be pursued and never caught, in order to keep their 
 love ? Is this your philosophy ? " 
 
 " I don't like St. Paul, but I answer your paraphrase 
 with his own, ' God forbid ! ' Love has naught to do 
 with marriage. It is a brief flame, that soon burns out. 
 If nurtured wisely, it may last longer than if it be 
 allowed to waste. Cupid is to marriage what John the 
 Baptist is to our religion the Forerunner; he who 
 makes its paths straight. Marriage should be a matter 
 of affection solely. The flame of love burns out ; but 
 the bond of affection remains sometimes. The wo- 
 man or man who looks for love after marriage has stop- 
 ped the pursuit, after Cupid has quenched the flame of 
 his torch and gone, is disappointed. Whose fault is 
 it? Let them look for affection, and recognize what 
 thinkers in all ages and among all people have proven
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 13 
 
 to be the Truth, that there can be no love in marriage. 
 They pursue, and prefer to pursue, the ignis fatuus in 
 the bogs of error, when the broad straight road of 
 truth and experience before them is lighted by electric- 
 ity. When man and woman tire of love ; when affection, 
 which is lifelong and the foundation of all our enduring 
 personal relations, has been made, by the flame of love 
 which has brought two strange hearts together, a solid 
 and enduring tie between them, let them kiss Cupid 
 good-bye, speed the parting guest, and marry. But let 
 them never expect to see the garden god again. His 
 mission has been fulfilled. He has brought the strang- 
 ers together. Association has produced affection. 
 Affection has resulted in marriage. He will never 
 return. 
 
 " But our love will not grow cold, my darling." 
 " You will never die, Richard ? Nor I ? We will never 
 lie in our coffins and be consigned to the earth ? That 
 our love is brief, that it will burn out in a year or two, 
 is as certain as that you and I will die in a century. If, 
 while it binds us, an enduring affection grows up 
 between us, to remain when it has gone, it will be well 
 with us. But we can hope for nothing else. No life 
 has lasted a century ; no love a year. Men and women 
 sometimes lag superfluous beyond five score, and love 
 may drag itself along beyond a honeymoon, but the 
 one is not life or living, nor the other love or loving. 
 Death in life and death in love may not count. When 
 the strong soul is stricken through fleshly pulses, it is a 
 fever which must run its course quickly." 
 
 He was silent and she continued, her quaint pauses 
 giving her words the effect of one speaking in a dream 
 or by another influence.
 
 14 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 " Face truth, Dick. This is the reason why we must 
 not ' fly.' We love. But our love will burn out. It 
 is no foundation for a life relationship. Let us clasp 
 hands while the flame lasts, and bid one another farewell 
 as lovers, before the ashes are cold." 
 
 " You do not love me, Mabelle, as I love you, or you 
 could not talk so logically and rationally." 
 
 His words are light and kind, but there is the faintest 
 tinge of bitterness and- truth. 
 
 "You are not a coward, Dick. What you say is 
 perfectly true. Women never love, or rarely love. 
 Only those who unsex themselves, like Catherine of 
 Russia, pursue men as men pursue women and there 
 is no love without pursuit. Speaking with strict ac- 
 curacy and generally, only men love, or can love. 
 Women do not love ; they are loved." 
 
 " Yet } 7 ou said a little while ago that you loved me." 
 
 " That was speaking after the manner of men, that 
 you might understand me, not misunderstand me. 
 When a woman says she loves a man, she does not mean 
 what he means. She rejoices in the love ; she glories in 
 the love. She may in a totally different way be said to 
 pursue him, but her pursuit will be mental and his 
 physical. There is no action and therefore no love in 
 her pursuit. She may be willing to make any sacrifice 
 to get his love. She may treasure it above rubies. It 
 may be all the world to her. She may prefer death to 
 losing it. But she has no love for him. Her apprecia- 
 tion of his love is not love, any more than my feelings 
 for this little piece of ribbon which I prize, because you 
 once had it and gave it to me, are themselves a physical 
 ribbon. I say I love it, but that is an accepted figure 
 of speech and paraphrase. Love is the mental impres-
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 15 
 
 sion of rational action whose end is in itself. The mental 
 impression of an emotion or sensation, which is what 
 the woman is conscious of is not love. We call it 
 love for want of a better name, and men are vexed 
 because it does not produce the same phenomena as 
 their own." 
 
 " What would you call it ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I never thought enough about it. I 
 am no dialectician. But it is as sweet to be loved as it 
 is to love. Don't misunderstand that, Dick. If the 
 woman is passive, the man active, it is fate which as- 
 signs their parts ; and the one is as happy as the other 
 in playing the little drama." 
 
 " And is this why women are so cold, and men so 
 warm ? " 
 
 "In part. I am happy in your love, and in every 
 changing phase of it. Even when you ask me to do 
 evil, the hearing is pleasant and sweet, and my refusal 
 pain. I would deny you nothing, if I could help it, for 
 your sake. I am happy and content with what I have 
 that is not forbidden. It is so much." 
 
 "But, my darling, I cannot be content with what 
 contents you." 
 
 " If you could, you would not love me. You are a 
 man, I a woman. The difference lies between loving 
 and being loved." 
 
 " Did you mean, by being my wife for three months, 
 and then dying or parting, that our love would only 
 last that time, or was it merely a chance remark ? " 
 
 " I meant that and I meant more. I was thinking of 
 something else. My thoughts are wandering everywhere 
 to-night." 
 
 " I will not deny your logic ; I will face Truth. Will 
 
 you?"
 
 16 ir IS THE LAW. 
 
 ' I never feared to. Behind her frown she hides a 
 smile. She is the only true Providence." 
 
 "You have been reading St. Chrysostom. 'Where I 
 found the Truth there I found my God.' I can furnish 
 you with better reading by Bertha M. Clay. Now listen 
 to me. Your hand clings to mine. What does it mean ?" 
 
 " Love," she replied. " That you love and I am loved." 
 
 " And love means clinging lips also." 
 
 " Yes, and that is sin." 
 
 " Why the one more than the other?" 
 
 " Because the law makes it so. Not statute law in 
 this case, but common law, the world's code. Without 
 law, there is no sin." 
 
 " And only the law restrains you from giving me your 
 lips as freely as your hand? " 
 
 " Only the law. What else could or should ? 
 
 " Now, by St Paul ! " he cried passionately, " and am 
 I never to hold you in my arms ; never to feel your heart 
 against mine ; never to have you for my own for even an 
 hour? Is my love to be stifled, choked, beaten down, 
 because this ancient fetish called Law says we must not. 
 Will you not release yourself for a day, for an hour, from 
 this bondage of law, and stand erect and free ? '* 
 
 " Never while life lasts." 
 
 There was not the slightest doubt possible that the 
 low, even, almost careless words were merely the state- 
 ment of a fact which nothing could overthrow. 
 
 " Dick, dear, don't you know that women are born 
 slaves. We are never born free. We have no desire 
 for freedom. Why do we weac rings and bracelets? 
 Did you ever see a woman who did not wear them? 
 and yet what are they the symbols of but slavery ? If we 
 cannot get the substance we get the shadow, and if we
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 17 
 
 cannot find a master we make one. All good women 
 now recognize the Law as theirs. It is high fashion." 
 She laughed lightly. 
 
 Dick pulled up a bush and whipped the stone wall 
 savagely. 
 
 " Sit down here, Dick, and talk to me. Answer me 
 some questions. Why do you wish me to break the 
 law ? " 
 
 " Why ? There is no reason. Yes, there is, but I never 
 thought of it. It is to silence fear. I hope you love 
 me. But I cannot hope you do without fearing you do 
 not. It is to justify hope, to cast out fear, to make 
 knowledge. If you were my wife for an hour I would 
 know you loved me. You would not be unless you did. 
 It is the last and final test of love. According to your 
 own theory, it is the death-bed promise and pledge. If 
 I lost you after that time, there would be no gall of doubt 
 mingled with the bitterness of loss. To lose you, with- 
 out that torturing doubt removed, would be to have it last 
 forever ; to have its taste in every memory." 
 
 " And how would you know any better then than now ? 
 Is the death-bed confession more to be trusted than that 
 given in full health? " 
 
 " Because Love is the blending of two souls, and 
 Marriage is the rude physical manifestation of the in- 
 ward and spiritual union the only test we have. Here 
 i-; my right hand and here my left. If the one clasps the 
 other, is there any mental shock ? Touch this rock with 
 one. Now with the other. The impression is the same 
 in each case. There are not two thoughts, but only one 
 thought. The harmony shows they are branches of one 
 soul. There is but one mental impression for either. It 
 is so in all things. Now carry out the simile. I took your
 
 18 IT IS THE LA }}'. 
 
 hand a month ago and you withdrew it. Why? Becaus 
 it produced two different mental impressions, showing 
 our two souls were not one, and yours flamed up in alarm 
 when mine was unconscious. Now your hand seeks 
 mine unconsciously. Why? Because our souls are unit- 
 ing not wholly united yet, because yours takes alarm at 
 anything else. This is why the lover craves favor after 
 favor, to satisfy himself of that inward and spiritual 
 union ; and he is not satisfied until every possible test 
 has been applied, and until the other soul never notices 
 what his own would not by and of itself. This is why 
 Love seeks Marriage, without regard to what marriage has 
 been made, and without regard. to what it should be, be- 
 cause marriage is the final test of all. It is this moral doubt, 
 this inability to prove the mind of the loved one in any 
 other way, that makes the lover seek physical manifesta- 
 tions to prove the spiritual blending. I cannot make 
 myself clear, perhaps, because the thought is new to 
 me, but you can catch the idea." 
 
 " And would it satisfy you to have me for your law- 
 ful wife for three months ? " 
 
 " Do not hold such happiness before my eyes to take 
 it away." 
 
 " You have never asked me to be your lawful wife, 
 Richard. " There was no reproach in the voice. It 
 was an observation made more to herself than to him. 
 
 " But you are married ! " He had taken it as a 
 reproach, and it had cut deeply. He was confused and 
 bewildered. 
 
 She smiled a little sadly 
 
 A light came over his face. " My darling, my dar- 
 ling," he broke out passionately, and with a fire and 
 earnestness that were straight from his heart, " forgive
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 10 
 
 me ! forgive me ! Will you be my honest, lawful, and 
 true wife ? Will you break the bonds that now bind you, 
 and give me hope to call you mine when I may, before 
 the world ? " 
 
 She drew his head against her breast and kissed his 
 forehead. 
 
 " It would be perfectly possible for me to be your 
 lawful and true wife for one month, or three months, if 
 I wished, or while our love lasted while you still had 
 pleasure in pursuing me. But if I should consent it 
 would be upon two conditions." 
 
 " I accept any conditions ; what are they ? " 
 
 " The first, that you would not promulgate our 
 marriage to the world, to cause talk and arouse curiosity, 
 and only announce it to those who have a right to know 
 it, in order to stop scandal." 
 
 " Certainly. Your wishes shall be my law." 
 
 " The second, that you will not ask me to break my 
 present marriage bonds with my husband." 
 
 " I do not understand you," he exclaimed, in aston- 
 ishment and confusion. " How else can you be my 
 lawful wife ? " 
 
 " I can be your lawful wife in any State in the Union 
 within forty-eight hours, without ceasing to be my 
 uncle's wife, without giving him the slightest cause to 
 object to anything I may do, without giving anyproper 
 excuse or protext for scandal.'' 
 
 " You can ?" 
 
 " Yes ; do you regret your hasty words ? " 
 
 He kissed her fingers. 
 
 " Now tell me how this miracle may be wrought." 
 
 " Before I do, I want to call your attention to one 
 fact. If you should marry me, I should be your wife
 
 20 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 for only a short time. More than that, I shall have 
 another husband of whom you must not be jealous. 
 When we part, I shall still have him ; but you will have 
 no other wife. You will be a married man, and inca- 
 pable of marrying again without the expense of a divorce. 
 Think over it." 
 
 " I accept the conditions gladly. Tell me how this 
 wonder may come." 
 
 " As a matter of precaution, and thinking it might 
 some day be useful, when I was in Chicago two years 
 ago, I obtained a divorce from William, which is 
 perfectly valid in the State of Illinois, but not valid in 
 this State. I am legally and morally free to marry in 
 the State of Illinois, and such a marriage would be both 
 lawful and morally binding in every State in the Union. 
 No court in this state would have a right to question * its 
 validity ; no individual a right to question its pro- 
 priety. This divorce does- not affect in any way my 
 marriage to William, except in Illinois, f It gives me a 
 
 * " Where a marriage is valid by the laws of another state, its validity 
 cannot be questioned in this slate. Thus, even if persons who can- 
 not legally marry in this state go to another state, the laws of which 
 permit them to marry, and marry there, such marriage is valid in 
 this state." Court of Appeals, June, 1883, Moore vs. Hayeman, 92 
 N. Y.,p. 526. 
 
 if either party has contracted a previous marriage valid in this 
 state, both marriages are valid, and the party has two lawful wives 
 (or husbands). 
 
 t " A coiirt of another state has no jurisdiction to dissolve the 
 marriage of a citizen of this state, domiciled here, who is not served 
 with process in the foreign state and who does not appear in the 
 action." Court of Appeals, 1880, Peo. v. Baker, 76 N. Y. 78. 
 
 Same decision, Supreme Court, 1882, Peo. v. Chase, 27 Hun., 
 256. 
 
 A marriage contract made in this state remains in full force and 
 effect during the lifetime of the parties, no matter how many divorces
 
 IT Ifi THE LAW. 21 
 
 legal and a moral right, in every state in the Union 
 except two, to two or more lawful husbands, provided 
 I marry them in the way prescribed by law." 
 
 " Does Smith know of it ? ' 
 
 " Certainly not, and I do not wish him to know it at 
 present. I came very near having to reveal it to him 
 last spring, when we visited his aunt's in Chicago. Of 
 course I would not let him kiss me while in the State of 
 Illinois, and I had to manoeuvre to keep from being 
 left alone with him during our stay. If I had not suc- 
 ceeded I should have had to explain the matter to him. 
 He was not my husband in the State of Illinois, although 
 he was my husband in every other State of the Union 
 except New Hampshire." * 
 
 " But did you not dissemble at all?" 
 
 " I am an honest, proper, and law-abiding woman, 
 Dick. It would have been as wicked with him there 
 as with you here to give any stranger occasion to think 
 I was his wife, when I was not." 
 
 " And when may I marry you ? When may I be- 
 come your second lawful husband?" If he had been 
 taking a nap in an ice-house he could not have had a 
 worse chill. 
 
 " I am going to Chicago, Thursday, for a week or ten 
 days." It is not an answer to his question, and he puts 
 it in a different form. 
 
 "If I come on, will you marry me there? " He felt 
 he had to say it. It was worse than asking her to 
 "fly," for she was certain to say yes to this. But 
 she did not. 
 
 may have been obtained in foreign states, provided that no court in 
 any foreign state had at one time jurisdiction over both the parties 
 and the subject-matter. 
 
 * X-\v Hampshire acivpls nil rr^-i'nr 'ivnrcvs us valid.
 
 22 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 " I have no right to answer such a question here, 
 Dick," she replies with a little laugh. " You have no 
 thought for the proprieties of life. Here, I am a 
 married woman. There, I am femme sole, free to marry. 
 You must wait for my reply until I am in Illinois." 
 
 Yet, for all that, he has no doubt of what the answer 
 will be. 
 
 " Suppose your husband finds out you have married 
 me, what will he say or do ? " 
 
 "You assume too much, Richard; but, if I should, he 
 may say or do nothing. It is none of his business. I 
 am quite within my legal rights.* He has another legal 
 wife. I had been four years married before I found it 
 out. He may find out for himself that I have another 
 legal husband when I take one." 
 
 " You are the same as my affianced wife. We are to 
 be married within ten days. Yet you have never 
 kissed me or let me kiss you. Will you not give me 
 your lips, Mabelle ? Our love stands confessed, with 
 lawful marriage to follow." 
 
 She puts him away with firmness. 
 
 " No, Richard, I have no right to. I do not know 
 that Mrs. Grundy has ever given out a decision of 
 the proper course to pursue or the etiquette to be 
 observed, but I do know that with a careful construction 
 
 * Though a woman should in this manner marry half-a-dozeu men 
 secretly, and live with them in turn, no action for divorce would lie. 
 Her relations with each one would be lawful. Each one of the men 
 would be her lawful husband, and she would commit no offense at 
 which a husband could take exception. A husband may lawfully set 
 up a harem, or a wife may lawfully set up an andron. Either one 
 would be entirely within the limits of the law, and in every respect 
 guarded by its' majesty and might, if the harem or andron were made 
 iu the manner prescribed.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 23 
 
 of the code it should be forbidden under the circum- 
 stances. You must wait until we meet in Illinois." 
 
 " You cannot refuse me there ? " 
 
 "There it would be right and proper, for I am a 
 single woman in the State of Illinois," she replies, frankly 
 and shyly; "but here I am a married woman, with a 
 husband's honor to watch and guard. Should WQ be 
 married in Illinois, you would be my husband there 
 the only husband I could have there and I would 
 guard your honor there as carefully as I guard William's 
 here. We must go home ; it is getting late." 
 
 " Are you sure of your ground ? " he asks, as they walk 
 along, hand in hand. 
 
 " Yes," she replies confidently, " I am sure of it. It 
 is the law."
 
 24 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 For why shouldst thou, my son, go astray with a strange woman, 
 And embrace the bosom of a stranger. Prov. v. 20. 
 
 THE lawn at Brookside is too thickly studded with 
 gigantic cedars to permit more than a stray glint of 
 sunshine or moonshine to ever reach the soft carpeting 
 of needles that covers it, or to fall across the hammocks, 
 of which there are over a dozen inviting rest and 
 dreams. 
 
 Mrs. Carter rises from one, as she hears the crunch 
 upon the gravel of the returning footsteps, and walks 
 forward to the low, wooden fence, where the light falls 
 full upon her, making a very pretty picture as she stands 
 waiting. She is seven-and-twenty, in the perfect full- 
 ness of womanhood, tall and fair, with a sweet matronly 
 look upon the high-bred face that the moonlight 
 softens into a beauty of the heart that is almost divine. 
 She is dressed in white, even to the nubia that is rest- 
 ing lightly on her hair, and the moonbeams glint and 
 dance around her as a waving bough intercepts them 
 from moment to moment. 
 
 " Spare our lives, O ghost ! " calls Dick cheerily. 
 
 4 How late you are ! The Warrens always go to bed 
 with the birds, and you have either thrown their whole 
 household out of gear, or you have been love-making. 
 On second thought, I think " 
 
 "Well? " Dick blushes like a schoolboy.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 25 
 
 "That our rnilk will come at the regular time." 
 Something in the voice, some faint discord, shows that 
 it is out of tune. 
 
 " Where is Gypsy ? The children ? " 
 
 " The children were in bed before dark. Yesterday was 
 too much for them. Gypsy went up to her room an 
 hour ago, and I have been lying in the hammock ever 
 since, mooning, while you have been 
 
 "Spooning," Dick good-naturedly says for her, as 
 she hesitates to catch the exact word. " You couldn't 
 use such slang, Mimi, even if you wanted to, could 
 you?" 
 
 He passes his arm around her and draws her closely 
 to him, kissing her. She looks up at his face with eyes 
 filled with trouble, saying nothing. 
 
 " Are you tired, Mimi ? " he asks, with a tenderness 
 that is as natural as to breathe. 
 
 " No," she replies, a little wearily. " I feel as if I 
 had been drinking many cups of strong tea, and could 
 not sleep. How do you feel, Belle ? Is it not too lovely 
 here to think of pillows and dreams ?" 
 
 " Indeed it is. I have been watching the light on 
 the Crow's Nest and the silver glory on Bull Hill and 
 talking nonsense to Dick until these shadows, with 
 the little pencils of light, are positively delicious in their 
 contrast. You can take one end of this hammock and I 
 will take the other. Dick, you take the next, but don't 
 swing this one." 
 
 Dick tucks in their dresses, arranges their pillows, 
 and makes them comfortable. It is plain that he knows 
 how a rare knowledge and is thoroughly drilled in 
 such little attentions. 
 
 What, a delight it is up here, where at midnight the
 
 26 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 grass and ground areas dry as at midday !" Mrs. Carter 
 exclaims, after a silence. 
 
 " I feel very dry," Dick remarks. 
 
 " The beer is in the angle of the porch in a tub of ice. 
 Bring Belle a bottle of the Toledo and me a. bottle of 
 pilsener. The pilsener is corked, and the corkscrew is 
 hanging over the tub." 
 
 " Beer is a nice drink for a healthy man ! " His scorn 
 is playful, not earnest. 
 
 " There's ginger ale and Apollinaris water and a 
 siphon of Vichy I put in there for you." 
 
 " Thanks, Mimi. You are mother and aunt, and 
 you ought to have been my grandmother too. You 
 are all three rolled into one." 
 
 Her anxious eyes follow him until he turns the 
 corner. 
 
 " You ought to he his wife too, Nellie; then his cup 
 of happiness would be full." 
 
 There was a little laugh at the end, but there was a 
 meaning in the words which Mrs Carter either did not 
 understand or ignored. Perhaps she thought it was a 
 twinge of jealousy, for she answered quietly : 
 
 " He is more my son than my nephew. I took him 
 in my arms at my dead sister's burial, twelve years ago, 
 and soothed and quieted his grief. He sobbed himself 
 to sleep in my arms, and as I sat and held him, all the 
 mother love came to me, and from then till now he has 
 been my first-born, my Judah." 
 
 " That's no reason why you should not be his wife, 
 my dear, if you wanted to. It seems the best of reasons 
 why you should have married him when he grew up." 
 
 " Belle ! " 
 
 " Why should you be so shocked ? Why should he
 
 IT IS THE LA FF. 27 
 
 not many his mother's sister? Did I not marry my 
 mother's brother? Was there any reason why I should 
 not, except that I did not want to, and my wishes did 
 not amount to anything.?" 
 
 " I did not think of your marriage when I spoke ; but 
 was it lawful ? I thought such a marriage was illegal." 
 A strange confusion filled her, and her voice was a trifle 
 unsteady. What it meant she had no idea. She did 
 not recognize the temptation that had suddenly come to 
 her. 
 
 " Illegal ? Certainly not. It is perfectly lawful and 
 proper for an uncle to love and marry a niece, or for an 
 aunt to love and marry a nephew. So far as love and 
 marriage are concerned, they are as far apart as forty- 
 second cousins through Adam.* See what a load Dick 
 is bringing! Are you strictly temperance, Dick ? Do you 
 never look upon the wine when it is red or the beer 
 when it is foam ? ' r 
 
 " I don't believe in ' temperance' as it is called ; but I 
 never drink anything stronger than water or tea. I would 
 not hesitate to take a tumbler-full of rum if I should get 
 wet in a rainstorm, or a quart of whiskey if a snake 
 should bite me; but as for drinking it for pleasure, I 
 would much prefer peppermint or paregoric. I am ex- 
 traordinarily fond of them, and I like port-wine and 
 
 * This is the law in New York ; but the courts have taken it upon 
 themselves, so far as possible, to discourage such marriages by dismiss- 
 ing suits for breach of promise brought by aunt against nephew or 
 niece against uncle. As it stands now, the marriage is perfectly law- 
 ful, but damages cannot be obtained for breach of promise when one 
 party jilts the other. 
 
 The marriage of first cousins is forbidden in Arkansas, Dakota, 
 Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Washington 
 and Wyoming. In some others such a marriage is void.
 
 28 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 rum ; but they are all medicines, to be used as medicines. 
 Mrs. Parker drinks laudanum, and lots of women use 
 valerian, chloral, and other dangerous drugs, mainly to 
 promote sleep, just because a few lunatics have taken a 
 prejudice against a harmless sedative made from hops 
 a medicine called beer. But I need no sedative. I can 
 sleep the sleep of the just as soon as my head touches a 
 pillow. I will take a little wine for my stomach's sake 
 when it gets old, or if I get sick and it is feeble. The 
 temperance lunatics are simply engaged in the work of 
 making drunkards, by setting up ridiculous standards, 
 lying about ' liquor '; and rendering nugatory the work 
 of sensible men." 
 
 " I drink beer because I like it to drink." 
 
 " Mi mi caught me mixing up some paregoric not long 
 ago. I wanted to drink it because I liked it to drink. 
 Is that a reason why paregoric should not be sold, or 
 why it should be denounced as a curse ?" 
 
 " Then there's no mock virtue in your abstinence ? " 
 
 " Not the slightest. Merely common-sense. Have 
 another drink ? " 
 
 Mrs. Carter has been silent, paying no attention to 
 the conversation. As Belle hands Dick her glass, she 
 says : 
 
 " Would you tell us, dear, how you came to marry 
 your uncle ? Have you any objection ? " 
 
 " None whatever. There is no story about it, except 
 of the Jack-a-Nory kind." She paused a moment ; then 
 continued : " I was twelve years and one month old 
 when my mother died. Uncle Will came to see us the 
 week before. My mother was not perfectly clear in her 
 mind, and her insane point was that I was to be a rich 
 woman, and that some devil would marry me. Uncle
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 29 
 
 Will, to soothe her, said he would marry me himself. 
 She took this up, and insisted upon his doing it then 
 and there. He did not hesitate about it, but I did. I 
 vowed I wouldn't marry Uncle Will ; but they sent for 
 a clergyman, paying no attention to me. 
 
 " The clergyman asked me how old I was, and when 
 I said ' twelve,' he told them that it was a crime for him 
 to marry a girl under fourteen ; that I was old enough 
 to be married, but that all marriages between the ages 
 of twelve and fourteen should be by ' publication and 
 proclamation.' The marriage would be legal if he per- 
 formed it, but he could be punished for officiating, and 
 he declined to do it.* 
 
 " Then they sent for a lawyer. He drew up a mar- 
 riage contract, which I refused to sign. He told me 
 before he went away that I could have the marriage set 
 aside when I should be fourteen, as my mother had 
 signed for me. This I found out was a mistake. Law- 
 yers usually make mistakes in such matters. 
 
 " Uncle Will was so good the week my mother died, 
 that I forgot all about my opposition to the marriage, 
 
 * This curious anomaly comes from the fact that the legal age of a 
 woman to marry (12) was fixed by the common law, and her legal age to 
 give consent (14) was regulated by the statute law. All the provisions 
 of the statute in relation to marriage apply naturally to one capable 
 of giving consent, one over fourteen (sixteen since Feb. 21, 1887), 
 leaving the two years (four years now) when she has no voice in the 
 matter unprovided for so far as ceremony, forms, and registration are 
 concerned. As these are not a part of marriages by proclamation, the 
 latter method must be resorted to when the girl is under the age of con- 
 sent, if the clergyman or magistrate will not risk the punishment. The 
 age of civil consent, until Feb. 21, 1887, was fourteen. Until June 24, 
 |s>7. the age of criminal consent was by statute ten years, so that for 
 four years a girl might consent to be a man's mistress, but could not 
 con-ient to be his wife. The amendments of 1887 make the age uni- 
 formly sixteen.
 
 30 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 and grew quite reconciled to it. In fact I forgot all 
 about the paper that -had been signed. I hadn't the 
 faintest conception of what marriage meant. I was 
 quite small for my age, and the day of the funeral I 
 jumped from dresses to my knees to dresses to my heels. 
 After the burial he took me on a wedding tour to Niag- 
 ara -and up the lakes, and when he brought me back to 
 New York and put me in a boarding-school I think I 
 hated him as a woman never hated a man before. 
 
 " When I was thirteen I spent my vacation with Anne 
 Henderson Mrs. Sturgis. I told Mrs. Henderson, and 
 she told her husband. He is of the law firm of Abbott, 
 Henderson & Hall. On my fourteenth birthday, * 
 the firm made application to the court to have my mar- 
 riage set aside on the ground that it was contracted 
 against my will. The court refused to interfere on the 
 ground, (1), that I was of lawful age for marriage 
 (twelve years) ; (2), that not being of the age of lawful 
 consent (fourteen), my consent or non-consent could not 
 be given by myself, but' was vested in my mother, who 
 
 * Section 1742. An action maybe maintained by the woman to pro- 
 cure a judgment declaring a marriage contract void, and annulling the 
 marriage under the following circumstances : 1. Where the plaintiff 
 had :sot attained the age of fourteen years at the time of the marriage; 
 '2. Where the marriage took place without the consent of her father, 
 mother, guardian, or other person having legal charge of her person; 
 3. Where it was not followed by consummation, and was not ratified 
 by any mutual assent of the parties, after the plaintiff attained the age 
 of fourteen years. C. C. P., Chap. 25. (The word fourteen was 
 changed to sixteen by the act of June 24, 1887.) In order that a mar- 
 riage may be declared void, the suit must be brought immediately 
 upon arriving at the age of consent. 
 
 Section 1744. A marriage shall not be annulled at the suit of a 
 party who was of the age of legal consent (fourteen then, sixteen now) 
 when it was contracted, or where it appears that the parties, for any 
 time after they attained thai age, lived together as husband and wife,
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 31 
 
 had consented for me, signed my name, and witnessed 
 the contract.* If I had willingly entered into the con- 
 tract alone by myself, the marriage would have been set 
 aside upon my petition, as there would have been no 
 lawful consent to the marriage, neither my own (which 
 did not count) nor my mother's ; but otherwise it had 
 to stand. There was no reason for annulling it except 
 to gratify my wishes in the matter. It was in the power 
 of the court to do this, but it declined to do it. 
 
 " You don't hate your uncle now. How did you come 
 to like him?" 
 
 " By association, I suppose. I spent my subsequent 
 vacations travelling with him, and after graduation he 
 took me on a delightful trip up the Mediterranean. He 
 never scolded me once or said a harsh word to me ; and 
 when I used to let my temper out in a blaze at him he 
 would only say ' Poor motherless girl ! ' It was his per- 
 sistent amiability, I think, that reconciled me to my 
 fate. I am very fond of him, at times. There are not 
 many men in the world with such a sweet disposition 
 or with such a strong brain." 
 
 " Smith has another legal wife, you said. How did 
 that come ? " 
 
 * Until the chi'.d reaches the age of consent, the consent is vested in 
 the parent or guardian. In this case the point was not made that the 
 parties were uncle and niece, and if it had been properly urged the 
 court might have annulled the marriage on the ground that they were 
 too nearly related. The sillier the point, the more likely to be adopted. 
 Marriage is considered by the courts a very serious matter, and a mar- 
 riage once enteied into must stand unless there is some very weighty rea- 
 son for annulling it. Even where the marriage is a felony in itself 
 where it is without the parent's consent, and the girl is under sixteen 
 though the husband be sent to State Prison for five years, yet the mar- 
 riage stands i;.iod ; and no human power could declare it void, prior 
 to June 24, W<1, if the girl \va^ over fourteen. Section 1744.)
 
 32 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 Mrs. Carter looked keenly at Dick, and the trouble 
 in her eyes grew deeper. 
 
 " One day Billy asked me to look through his desk for 
 some papers. I did so, and found a divorce, granted in 
 Indiana, against Jane Williams. It was dated only a 
 few months before our marriage. When I showed it 
 to him he told me that he had married her when he was 
 nineteen years old. He spent his last college vacation 
 with a classmate who lived in Jefferson county, and she 
 was a girl in a neighboring village. He had married her 
 in a moment of infatuation, and when he told his father, 
 the latter insisted upon a divorce, to which he was quite 
 willing to agree, but had never taken the trouble to get 
 until then. When I remarked that it was of no more 
 use than a piece of waste paper, and that his previous 
 marriage in this State rendered our subsequent marriage 
 in this State not only invalid, but bigamous, he replied 
 that, before going to Europe the year he was graduated, 
 lie had gone to the village, and found that Jane had 
 left with her sister ; . that he tried to trace her and could 
 not ; that, when we were married, over five years had 
 elapsed from the time she disappeared ; and that he was 
 perfectly free to marry again in this State without the 
 divorce ; * but that if, before marrying, he had not se- 
 
 SECTIOX 6. If any person whose husband or wife shall have ab- 
 sented himself or herself for the space of five successive years, with- 
 out being known to such person to be living during that time, shall 
 marry during the lifetime of such absent husband or wife, the mar- 
 riage shall be void only from the time that its nullity shall be pro- 
 nounced by a court of competent authority. 
 
 This second marriage has the same validity as the first marriage, 
 except that the innocent third party may, at pleasure, apply to have 
 it ended. The. children born of it are legitimate, and inherit, and it is 
 not to the interest of the iiuiocent party to have it ended. If no ap- 
 plication is made by the proper person to declare it void, it must stand
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 33 
 
 cured the divorce, his second wife would have been free 
 to have the marriage annulled whenever she pleased. 
 The divorce was merely to keep his second wife from 
 having the whip hand over him. I suppose I might 
 succeed now in an application to have our marriage 
 annulled from the date of the decree, if I should make a 
 strong effort, in spite of the divorce, * for Jane Wil- 
 liams is his lawful wife in this State and in every State 
 except Indiana and New Hampshire ; but why should I 
 do it ? If I had known about it years ago, I should 
 have tried." 
 
 " How, in the name of all that's wonderful, do you 
 know so much about law ? " Dick asks. 
 
 She laughs softly. " We had a regular course, the 
 last year at Mrs Rider's, of marriage and divorce law. She 
 said that it was more important than any other study ; 
 that every woman should understand it thoroughly, as 
 the happiness of their lives would more often depend 
 upon a knowledge of the law, than upon French or music. 
 We had an excellent instructor, ex- Judge Abbott, and 
 he made it the most interesting and fascinating study 
 
 during life. If the deserter returns, then the party deserted, if a hus- 
 band, has two legal wives, both of whom he must support, and with 
 both of whom he may lawfully live ; if a wife, she has two lawful 
 husbands, from both of whom she is entitled to support, and with 
 both of whom she may lawfully live. No action for divorce can be 
 maintained by any of the parties, as their relations are lawful. 
 
 * " A court of another State has no jurisdiction to dissolve the mar- 
 riage of a citizen of this State domiciled here who is not served with 
 process in the foreign State, and who does not appear in the action." 
 Court of Appeals, 1880, People vs. Baker, 76 N. Y., p. 78. 
 
 A court of another state cannot adjudge a dissolution of the mar- 
 riage of a resident of this State, without voluntary appearance or per- 
 sonal service. Supreme Court, 1882, People vs. Chase, 28 Hun, p. 256. 
 
 3
 
 34 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 we had. The girls used to be impatient for that study 
 hour." 
 
 " I never found law lectures entertaining, when I 
 took a course of them. How did he teach ? " 
 
 " Mainly by actual cases taken from the newspapers 
 and the decisions of the courts. But even the text of 
 the statutes was made interesting." 
 
 " Did he tell you that a husband was bound to pro- 
 vide support for a wife, and that it was a misdemeanor 
 punishable by one year's imprisonment if he failed to 
 doit?" 
 
 " You are trying to catch me. That was not the law 
 then. The law has been changed." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " Because I am interested in such questions, and I 
 keep informed about all changes, as he recommended." 
 
 " Is Mrs. Rider's the only school where girls are 
 taught marriage and divorce law ? " 
 
 " Not now. Nearly all American finishing schools have 
 a similar course. She started it, I believe ; but it was 
 long before my time." 
 
 " I don't think it should be necessary," says Mrs 
 Carter. 
 
 " It ought not to be, but it is," replies Mrs Smith, 
 rising. " I am going to bed. Nellie, I will leave you 
 and Mr Jones to tear my character to pieces, if you 
 wish to continue this stance." 
 
 She kisses her, bids Dick good-night, and flits into 
 the house. 
 
 Dick takes her place in the hammock after rearrang- 
 ing his aunt's pillow." 
 
 " Isn't she a delicious woman ? " he asks, in a vague sort 
 of way,
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 35 
 
 His aunt does not reply. There's a strange, faint feel- 
 ing, full of pain, that she is struggling against, and she 
 cannot. 
 
 Dick rattles on. " She's as lissome as a young colt ; and 
 what a clear and clever brain she has ! She can be 
 sentimental or poetic, and yet she is logical and full of 
 common-sense at the same time. She is the model 
 American wife and woman. No other country can show 
 anything like her, yet she is merely a type a very fine 
 type, it is true of what our American education and 
 environment produce. Her brain is not inherited ; it is 
 developed by training, and shows what our training 
 will do. I do not wonder that foreigners take so kindly 
 to our girls. In one or two generations more they will 
 be so clever that European girls will be comparative 
 barbarians." 
 
 " I think I will go in. Will you put the glasses back ? " 
 
 Dick is feeling in his pockets for something he can- 
 not find. 
 
 " You will find the box of cigars on the right hand 
 corner of the dining-room shelf. There's a package of 
 cigarettes on the box, and a box of matches beside it." 
 
 " Thanks, Mimi." 
 
 He bends and strokes her face and kisses her. She 
 shrinks a little, unconsciously, then lifts her head, and 
 kisses him in return. When he is no longer in sight she 
 rises slowly with an odd little laugh, saying softly, 
 " What is the matter ? What has come over me ? " 
 
 Five minutes later Dick is sitting in a low easy-chair 
 by the dining-room window, and is in the act of striking 
 a match when he feels an arm around his neck, and a 
 low voice says, " Dick, may I disturb your dreams for 
 a minute or two ? "
 
 36 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 The match goes out of the window. He turns quickly, 
 seizes her hands, and draws her upon his knee. His 
 quick ear has caught the minor key. 
 
 "What is it, Mimi?" 
 
 Her head sinks upon his shoulder, and her bosom 
 rises and falls for a few moments in noiseless sobs. 
 
 " You have been in trouble, yesterday and to-day, and 
 you have not told me," he says, gently. 
 
 " How do you know ? " She has not yet control of 
 her voice. 
 
 " By your face, Mimi ; by your eyes when they rested 
 on me. Do I not know every shade of the one, every 
 light in the other, my own sweet, darling, precious 
 Mimi ; pancake or no pancake ? Tell me." 
 
 " Do you know what day this is, Dick ? " 
 
 "Tuesday, July 6," he says, after a moment's hesita- 
 tion. " No, Mimi ; I do not know that it's any particular 
 day." 
 
 " Just twelve years ago to-night, Dick, you came into 
 my life ; and now, dear, you are passing out of it. I am 
 losing you, Dick, and it is very, very hard." Her voice 
 broke. 
 
 He kissed her eyes. His hand smoothed her hair. 
 Silence was more consoling than words. 
 
 " Do you remember, Dick? It was after dark when 
 we got home from the funeral and I took you to my room. 
 You cried passionately and would not be comforted, even 
 by your Mimi, much as you loved her. You were 
 such a delicate and fragile child that up to that time we 
 never expected you to live from one week to another, 
 and I grew frightened at your grief and tried in everyway 
 to console you. But you wanted only the mamma the 
 wicked men had left behind in the ground. At last I
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 37 
 
 unbuttoned my dress and put your thin little hand on 
 my breast, as your mother would have done, and in a few 
 minutes you fell asleep. I sat there, Dick, for nearly three 
 hours, for every time I moved you would begin sobbing 
 in your sleep. The touch of your hand gave me the 
 strangest sensations. From a girl, I grew into a woman, 
 from an aunt into a mother. I had loved you before, 
 but that was nothing to the love that came surging up 
 in waves. I kissed you, I cried over you, I prayed over 
 you. I vowed that I would be your mother, and I believe 
 that I forgot you were not my own, or if it was remem- 
 bered for a moment it brought a jealous twinge. 
 
 " For three years or more I lived only in you and for 
 you, Dick. I sent Harry away, because he might not 
 like you, and only let him come back to me when he had 
 promised to be your father and brother. He was good to 
 you, Dick ; and you owe much to him." 
 
 " Indeed I do. There have been very few like him in 
 the world." 
 
 " My first care was your health. Night and day I 
 watched over your crib. I followed the doctor's advice 
 to the letter, and I often had to deny you when it nearly 
 broke my heart to do it. But I conquered fate, did I 
 not, Dick ? " She puts her hands to his cheeks and looks 
 in his eyes with a little triumphant sob. " Few men can 
 compare with my strong, stalwart Dick." 
 
 " I owe you my life, my more than mother. I have 
 known it for years. I never shall forget it, because I 
 cannot." 
 
 " Then, Dick, the problem was to bring you up, not like 
 other boys, but free from evil and the contamination of 
 evil. Many a night I have lain awake thinking of this ; 
 for I wanted you to be a pure, sweet, clean, noble man.
 
 38 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 And you are, Dick ; but that is because you inherited 
 your mother's mind in your father's body." 
 
 " No, Mimi. It is only lately that I have fully learned 
 how much I owe in this respect to your care, your wise 
 and watchful tenderness that kept me from temptation, 
 that encircled me on every side; You do not know 
 yourself, Mimi. You can never know." 
 
 Her arms clasp around his neck. She kisses him again 
 and again. 
 
 " For years I have known I must lose you," she says, 
 " and I have schooled myself to bear the loss of my first- 
 born who came from heaven into my heart. I knew I must 
 not be selfish, and that it was my duty to give you to some 
 noble and true woman. I have never been jealous, my 
 darling, except of the false and painted women for whom 
 you always seemed to have such a strange attraction." 
 
 " It was only curiosity, Mimi. I have a strange fancy 
 for all sorts of monstrosities, such as living skeletons, and 
 three-armed men, and women without hearts, and talking 
 girls with saw-dust brains." 
 
 " They were often pretty, Dick ! But you know I 
 have sent you among good women, and brought pretty 
 girls (who were also wise) to the house. Tell me, Dick, 
 have I ever shown jealousy of any woman who would 
 make you a proper wife ? " 
 
 There was an entreaty in her tone of which she was 
 unconscious; Dick caught it, but manlike misappre- 
 hended it utterly. 
 
 " Mimi, you have overloaded me with sweethearts. If 
 I danced twice with a woman you have had her at the 
 house on a visit and planned something where I should 
 have her all to myself for an hour. If I praised a woman, 
 you made up a theatre party with me as her special
 
 IT IS TEE LAW. 39 
 
 cavalier. You have introduced me to a hundred pretty 
 women, and watched my face for some sign of interest in 
 each case ; and when I showed none, have straightway 
 found another of a different pattern to present me to. 
 If I had been a homely, sour, portionless daughter on 
 the wrong side of thirty, you couldn't have been more 
 anxious for me to marry or have maneuvered more 
 dexterously to find me chances. And I wanted none of 
 them. You were my sweetheart from the time I was 
 sixteen to twenty and I wanted no other. I never found 
 in their faces what I saw in yours, Mimi. I have been 
 miserably jealous the last two years, when you have put 
 me off on some self-conscious young virgin, and have sat 
 and talked and smiled to some corset-waisted, old, pro- 
 fessional beau." 
 
 Her arm had slipped around his waist, and her head 
 was laid on his shoulder. It was so sweet to her 
 bruised heart. 
 
 " Do you remember the days, Mimi, when you were 
 my sweetheart, and I would have none other ; when we 
 went everywhere together, to theatres, and parties, and 
 receptions ; on little excursions, and even to base-ball 
 matches and horse-races for which you cared nothing ? 
 And I was so proud of my lovely sweetheart, and never 
 let the boys at Columbia know you were my aunt ! Do 
 you remember? And the delicious little dinners at 
 Francanelli's, and the little suppers after the play at 
 Tortoni's, just as if we had been lovers and they were 
 sweet stolen waters ? And how long I would take to 
 arrange your scarf, until my hand touched your chin, 
 or your eyes had looked into mine and I had seen the 
 faint flush come to your face and the light to your 
 eyes and the little sweet smile to your lips ? Those
 
 40 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 were the sweetest, dearest da,ys of my life, Mimi. I 
 will never be so happy again. Do you remember 
 them ? " 
 
 Remember them ! Did she not ? Were they not 
 ever present with her a secret delight in which she 
 never dared indulge except in the darkness when all 
 alone. And she knew not why they were a delight, 
 or why she should fear. Up over face and neck and 
 arms to the very finger-tips the red blood surged in 
 a flood, as, with his arms around her, she recalled them, 
 and, in the darkness, her face turned closely to his neck, 
 her free hand unconsciously pressed upon her heart, as 
 if to smother the sound of its irregular beating, and she 
 trembled as with cold. Time and place, the world, the 
 past, everything faded away and was forgotten in this 
 moment of rapture that, like a sportive wave, seized her 
 with a grasp against which no human strength could 
 think to struggle, and tossed and toyed and played 
 with her. His sweet voice, not a word of which would 
 she or could she lose, brought her back from her 
 dreams. 
 
 " I did not know then, Mimi, what I know now, that 
 all this was but your watchful tenderness, your loving 
 care, my more than mother, to keep me from the temp- 
 tations and the sins of youth, to guide me through the 
 world with an angel by my side, and not merely to keep 
 me in ignorance of it, that prompted you." 
 
 Slowly the emotion passed away, his words bringing 
 rest and peace. But something seemed to have been 
 lost, though she knew not what. She was vaguely con- 
 scious that Fear had fled, she knew not why, and with 
 it Hope. 
 
 " But you will never know the fierce, wild jealousy
 
 IT IS THE LA W 41 
 
 that possessed me when this guardianship passed away 
 after I became twenty-one. On my very birthday, when 
 I wanted you, the sweetest, best, and loveliest woman 
 the sun ever shone upon, whom I had looked upon so 
 many years as all my own, for my companion on the ex- 
 cursion and at the reception ; when I wanted you, as I 
 never wanted you before in all my life, to rejoice with 
 me in my manhood, to share with me the honor ; on 
 that day you gave me to baby-faced Anne Henderson. 
 I went upstairs to my room and shook my fist at myself 
 in the glass and cursed Anne Henderson \vjth the 
 major excommunication from ' Tristram Shandy,' before I 
 could go downstairs and be civil to her." 
 
 She laughs a sweet, joyous, happy laugh of unspeak- 
 able content as she half turns to rest her heart against 
 his, her hands caressing his cheeks, fondling his fore- 
 head, smoothing his hair. It is only for a moment, but 
 his strong arms hold her closely, and their grasp is 
 swe^t. 
 
 " And that is why you took such a dislike to that 
 dainty girl, one of the sweetest you ever met ? " How 
 happy she is the voice shows. 
 
 " That and nothing else. She robbed me of you." 
 
 She cannot help it. Her arms close around his neck. 
 Her lips seek his in passionate pressure that is felt through 
 every nerve of her body and his. 
 
 " No, Dick," she says, almost fiercely, " that can never, 
 never be. No one can take me from you. I am heart of 
 your heart. But some one will take you from me." 
 
 " Why will you even think of such a thing? " 
 
 " Because it is true." 
 
 She rises and stands by the window, looking out at 
 nothing and inward at the painful thought.
 
 42 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 " Come here, Mimi, and tell me what you mean." 
 
 She turns. 
 
 " T must say it " 
 
 " Not there. Here on my breast ; where you started 
 to say it." 
 
 " But I am heavy, and you are tired." 
 
 It is very tempting. A great longing seizes her. 
 
 " Here, or I will not listen." 
 
 She yields, and sits upon his knee, her hand upon his 
 shoulder. 
 
 4< Are you sure you are not tired of me ? " 
 
 " Tired ! Aj^e, as tired as you were when you held 
 me for three hours in your arms to keep me from sob- 
 bing! As tired as you were an hundred and a thousand 
 times after, when you watched alone by my bed through 
 the long nights ! As tired as you have been when, after 
 a long day's journey, you have soothed my peevish, 
 childish complaints with unwearied patience, hour after 
 hour, your own brain half benumbed with pain! O, 
 Nellie ! " his voice broke in a fierce sob " if I only 
 could for once make some return. To suffer pain for 
 your dear sake would be the keenest delight." 
 
 She waited for a moment before she spoke. 
 
 " I did not mean, dear, when I recalled the past to 
 you, that there should be any sense of obligation, Dick. 
 I only meant to recall to you how much I love you, 
 and the fact that sometimes, though loving you, I have 
 had to give you pain that good might follow. And if I 
 give you pain now, that is my reason and my excuse. For 
 many weeks I have seen you slipping away from me, 
 but not as I could bear to see you, into the arms of a 
 good, pure woman, whom I could clasp to my heart and 
 call my daughter and my sister. I cannot say more.
 
 IT IK THE LA W. 43 
 
 You know, my darling, that I am not jealous of another 
 woman because she has your love " 
 
 Why did her voice falter ? What meant that unreal 
 sound to it, as if she did not believe her own words ? It 
 frightened her. 
 
 " But I am jealous of your honor, your manhood, 
 your self-respect. I care a thousand times more 
 for your honor than for my own. It has not yet 
 bet 1 n sullied by any low intrigue with a wife, or any 
 vile amour with a common woman. Do not, Richard, 
 be tempted into either. If you feel that you owe me 
 anything for the past, repay me fully, repay me to the 
 last fraction, by heeding my words and by doing this 
 thing for me. Pass this temptation by, at whatever 
 cost. If it is worth more to you to do this than what 
 you owe me 
 
 " Don't ! " He laid his finger lightly on her lips. " I 
 know what you mean. It were folly to deny it or to 
 beat about the bush. Your clear eyes probably saw the 
 descending road before I knew 1 was on it. I wish you 
 had spoken before the incline became so steep, but what 
 I c;in do in all honor to recover myself, that will I do." 
 
 " Oh ! Dick. Is it so bad as that ? " 
 
 Her eyes are dry, but her face is set, and the agony 
 of death is passing through her, 
 
 "Nay, nay, Nellie ! I have not had one kiss, but I 
 have kissed her hands, and once her ear. It is so bad, 
 but no worse." 
 
 " Not even a kiss ! Not even one ! " She is bewil- 
 dered. Then her indignation flares up that he should 
 have been so ill-treated. But before she expresses it, 
 lit; continues : 
 
 " You told me years ago never to 'kiss and tell '; but 
 not to tell all now would be to do worse by indirection.
 
 44 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 That kiss on her ear was the nearest I have come to her 
 lips." 
 
 His frank tone carried perfect conviction. 
 
 " But you love her, Dick ? " It was not a question, 
 but an entreaty, a statement of a truth. 
 
 " Do I ? " he asks, with a laugh that is more than half 
 natural. " I was not so sure of it after I asked her to 
 run away with me and she declined, as before it. The 
 more I think of it, the more convinced I am that you 
 and I ought both to be very thankful that I did ask her." 
 
 " But you must love her, Dick ! She is so handsome 
 and winsome, so keen and bright, so sadly lovable ! " 
 She couldn't help the scratch. " But, O, Dick, she's 
 as hard as nails," she exclaims in a sudden burst of 
 confidence and temper. 
 
 He laughs and smoothes her arm. She takes his hand 
 away. 
 
 " Tell me, do you love her ? " 
 
 " Not as I love you, Nellie." The words are very 
 low and hesitating. 
 
 " I know that," she replies bravely, but with a sensa- 
 tion of fainting and a pain that cuts like a knife ; 
 " but" 
 
 " I would not exchange all she can give me, though 
 it be everything in the power of woman to grant, for 
 one kiss from your lips, for even one loving thought in 
 your dreams. Do I love her, Nellie ? " His speech is 
 quiet, his voice very grave. The past twelve hours have 
 been a cycle in his life. 
 
 She bows her face in her hands. Her tears fall like 
 rain. But they are blessed tears that freshen the parched 
 heart as a July shower freshens the scorched fields. It 
 is over in a moment. She takes her hands away and he 
 dries her eyes. The little action is balm to her.
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 45 
 
 " Do I love her, Nellie ? " he persists. Never more 
 does the childish " Mimi " (auntie) come from his lips. 
 
 " No," she replies, confidently. She leans forward, 
 puts her arm around his neck, her heart full of shy hap- 
 piness, longing to confer some pleasure upon him, and 
 says, a little hesitatingly and with a color that the dark- 
 ness hides, " If it will give you pleasure, Dick, kiss her, 
 fondle her to your content. But don't love her,' 
 she whispers, unconscious of what the words betray ; " 1 
 could not bear that" 
 
 He takes her hands in his. 
 
 " Do you know what you are saying? A moment 
 ago and you were asking me to keep from this intrigue ; 
 and now you say go on with it. What has come over 
 
 you?" 
 
 It was too true. What had ? 
 
 " I meant I mean It was for your sake I wanted 
 you to abandon it. If you loved her it would ruin your 
 life. If you do not love her, I have no right to object. 
 You merely amuse yourself." 
 
 " And you do not object ? It would please you to 
 see her sitting here as you are, my arms around her, 
 my lips on hers ? " 
 
 She started as if stung. It was a minute before she 
 answered. 
 
 " I have no right to ask and no desire that you should 
 be a Joseph. King Arthur was not less but more the 
 flower of Christendom and exemplar of all that's knightly 
 and noble because he spent three months in Gwendolen's 
 bower." 
 
 " You have not answered me." 
 
 His quiet persistence confuses her. The shadow of 
 Fear falls upon her. She feels she must not answer, 
 even to herself, much less to him, and she evades it.
 
 46 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 " What did you mean by saying you wished I had 
 spoken before ? " she asks. 
 
 " I have said certain words. I cannot recall words that 
 can only be forgotten. I have made engagements that 
 must be kept." 
 
 " But if you do not love her, there is no danger to 
 you. Her caresses will give you pleasure. Take them. 
 Let us try and forget this conversation." 
 
 " Will that be so easy ? " 
 
 She knows it will not, and is silent. 
 
 " Has your trouble gone ? " 
 
 " Yes, in part." She rises. 
 
 " Do not go yet. You came here to scold me. Stay 
 a moment now that things disagreeable have been fin- 
 ished and put away." 
 
 She lets him draw her down. Her head sinks again 
 upon his shoulder, and his arm holds her tightly. She 
 is tired from the conflict of emotions, and her eyes close. 
 The rest, the peace, the silence are delicious. Minute 
 after minute passes. Then a sweet sense of shame 
 gradually rises wherefrom or wherefore she cannot tell 
 and she starts up, blushing violently. She feels her 
 face burn. 
 
 " I must go now. Good-night, Dick," she says, con- 
 fusedly and hurriedly, yet hesitating as she goes, as if 
 half expecting and certainly wishing him to detain her. 
 But he does not. 
 
 " Good-night, Nellie. May you have sweet and 
 pleasant dreams." 
 
 Was it some strange tone in his voice that caused her 
 to stand in the doorway, waiting until he had closed the 
 windows and joined her ? 
 
 " You are very sure you have made no mistake, that
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 47 
 
 you will not regret," she says, timidly, as they reach the 
 top of the stairs. 
 
 " I shall never cease to regret that I ever told another 
 woman I loved her ; 1 shall never forgive myself that 
 for one brief moment I thought I did," he answers, with 
 a tinge of bitterness, as he turns and walks up the cor- 
 ridor. " Good-night." 
 
 She stands irresolute for a moment. He has nearly 
 reached the door of his room. 
 
 " Dick ! " she whispers. 
 
 He hears and turns. She stands in a little patch of 
 moonlight that floods the corridor from the west win- 
 dow, her hands half extended and her face bowed. 
 
 The next instant she is clasped closely in his arms, 
 and she clings to him, though his kisses burn and sting, 
 and her blood runs leaping and dancing ; clings closer 
 and tighter that her eyes are blinded by the red lights 
 flashing before them, and she cannot breathe except in 
 gasps and sobs. 
 
 Suddenly she twists herself free, and the next instant 
 is in her room, leaning against the wall, both hands 
 pressed upon her panting bosom, but listening with sup- 
 ernatural keenness to the sound of his footsteps on the 
 bare boards. 
 
 When she hears the door of his room close she sinks 
 on her knees by the bed. 
 
 " He is mine ! He is mine ! He is mine ! " she whis- 
 pers over and over again. " I cannot give him up to 
 another. It is not wicked ! It is not wrong ! It is the 
 law."
 
 48 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In the lips of him that hath discernment wisdom is found : 
 But a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding. 
 
 Prov. x. 13. 
 
 " WHY, Frank, this is abominable ! You cannot mean 
 to prosecute this case ! " 
 
 " Indeed I do," says the other calmly. " At this time 
 to-morrow he will have been sentenced to five years im- 
 prisonment." 
 
 Both men are about thirty years old, and the room is 
 plainly the bachelor den of a lawyer. 
 
 The first speaker is fair-haired, with black eyes. His 
 skin is as clear and transparent as a woman's, and he 
 seems the embodiment of laziness and good living until 
 one catches a gleam of the eyes. He is one who 
 takes the world and the flesh easily as his waist shows 
 keeping the third party right behind the eyelids, and 
 ready to spring out at any moment. 
 
 His companion is dark and spare, with keen steel- 
 gray eyes and a strong face with fine lines ; one whose 
 every nervous motion shows mental activity of the 
 strongest kind. He is the district-attorney of Jefferson 
 county, and acknowledged to be the best it ever had. 
 
 Two men of more opposite natures than Frank Brooks 
 and William Smith could hardly be found in a sum- 
 mer day ; and it is probably owing to the fact that they 
 never agreed in their lives upon any single question of 
 opinion that they have been close friends from the day
 
 IT IS TUE LA W. 49 
 
 they joined the Freshman class in Union College, six- 
 teen years before. 
 
 " But this is a mere technicality, Frank. It is not 
 justice." 
 
 " How many trout did you catch to-day ? " 
 
 " Six. Never mind about my fishing. That is aliunde. 
 Talk of this case." 
 
 " Answer my question merely. The stenographer 
 will strike out all after the word ' six.' Did you seek 
 any information as to whether any of the six were mar- 
 ried or single, rich or poor, guilty or innocent ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, but ' 
 
 "When you saw a fine fat fellow, up to all the anglers' 
 tricks, did you not try to get him in preference to others 
 that were ready to jump for your bait ? ' 
 
 " As a matter of course. I was fishing for sport." 
 
 " Sometimes I fish for sport. Those who are floundering 
 in the waters of the law are my trout, and I try to land 
 them in Auburn. I am paid for it, but I have no special 
 liking for the work. Merely to pick up those who are 
 fast caught in the meshes of the net is labor merely for 
 bread and butter. But when I see a fine fat fellow that 
 the meshes are too large for, one who has eluded the 
 snares, then all the sporting blood in me comes to the 
 surface, and I spare nothing to land him." 
 
 " But consider this case by itself ; not as a lawyer, 
 but as a man ! " 
 
 " With pleasure ; as a juryman. Go on ! state the case 
 as you understand it." 
 
 The other laughs. " * Trying it on a dog,' Frank ? 
 Well, here goes. What do you think, on your oath as a 
 juryman, remember, of this story. Peter Robinson, an 
 honest man, upright and God-fearing, marries Fanny
 
 50 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 Williams, district school-teacher and soprano in the 
 choir, who is probably pretty, intelligent, and a favorite 
 with the men three felonious offences in the eyes of 
 every old maid and gossip in the village of Tip'ton. 
 Robinson knows he is hardly worthy such a wife, and 
 his naturally jealous- temper is most artfully played ; on 
 by two or three mischief-makers. He has occasion" to 
 be absent from home two nights in every month, 
 and rumors reach his ears that a strange man has 
 been seen going into his house late at night when 
 he is away. He has a row with his wife, traces 
 the story to the gossips, and one of these asserts that 
 she has also seen his wife slipping into the little room 
 at the depot where Bill Bunker, the station-master, sleeps, 
 at eleven o'clock, and coming out at two in the morn- 
 ing. Robinson gets a divorce on their testimony, and two 
 weeks afterward a girl in the village has Bunker arrest- 
 ed and brought before the Overseers of the Poor. It 
 turns out that she was the woman the gossips saw it 
 was not Mrs. Robinson. Then it is further discovered 
 that the woman who saw a man go into the house was 
 away from Tipton on the date she gave by mistake, and 
 that it was the 26th she was on the watch, not the 25th, 
 as she swore, and the man she saw was Robinson him- 
 self. Mrs. Robinson's reputation is cleared, and she and 
 Robinson are reconciled and re-married in the church, 
 the pastor making it, we will suppose, an occasion long 
 to be remembered by his sermon on scandalmohgering. 
 Then you pounce down on Robinson, the grand jury in- 
 dicts him for bigamy, as an accessory thereto 
 
 " And to-morrow he will go to Auburn to serve out a 
 sentence of five years' imprisonment. It will be the bes 
 day's work I ever did."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 51 
 
 " You cold-blooded wretch ! If his counsel had moved 
 to have the divorce set aside, the court would gladly 
 have granted the motion. Then there would have been 
 no bigamy. He was at liberty and free to marry any 
 other woman, not a married woman. Mrs. Robinson 
 could not marry him or anybody else." 
 
 " Exactly. He was free to marry any one else and 
 free to marry her if he was willing to pay $ 5 to have the 
 divorce set aside. But he kept the five dollars out of his 
 lawyer's pocket and in his own. Because he saved 
 five dollars, he must serve five years. That's just. It 
 was highway robbery of five dollars from a member of 
 the legal profession." 
 
 " Confound you, Frank. I am tempted to volunteer 
 in his defence and make my maiden speech to a jury. I 
 believe I could beat you." 
 
 "That would hardly be professional, Billy, after 
 studying my case ; but I will gladly have you do it. I 
 have tried hard enough to get you to practice, for I 
 know you would stand at the head of the talkers, as you 
 now stand at the head of the thinkers. I will risk losing 
 my pet case to get you to make the plunge." 
 
 " Why are you so anxious to convict this poor devil ? 
 What did he ever do to you ? " 
 
 " Nothing. I never heard of him until I read in the 
 Observer that he was to be re-married. I never saw 
 him. But this case will be a cause cglebre. It will be 
 the first conviction under the Court of Appeals' decision 
 in the case of the People vs. Faber,* and Chief Justice 
 
 * See 92 N. Y., 146. " A person against whom a decree of divorce 
 has been granted by the courts of this state, who, during the lifetime 
 of the plaintiff, marries again within this state, is guilty of bigamy. He 
 js a ' person having a husband or wife living ' within 2 R. S. 087 8."
 
 52 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 Neilson's decision in Moore vs. Moore.* It will go into 
 the law books, and I am fighting for reputation as well 
 as fun. If he has not money enough to carry the case 
 to the Court of Appeals, I shall hire counsel for him 
 and have the case appealed at my own expense. I am 
 right and I will win." 
 
 " I grant that you have on your side what is improp- 
 erly called ' the law,' but is really rank injustice. You 
 have no statute law no man would disgrace his man- 
 hood by proposing such a statute only judge-made law 
 to defend your position. What useful purpose will such 
 a conviction serve ? You cannot be so heartless, Frank, 
 as to do this cruel thing for mere sport. I happen to 
 know that you are one of the most tender-hearted and 
 sympathetic men living too tender-hearted to hunt or 
 fish much too tender-hearted to do such a thing as this 
 without a good motive. Come, old fellow, tell me ! " 
 
 Brooks laughs. " All the lawyers think my heart is 
 as hard as flint. Only you know my weakness, and, 
 putting all jest aside, the point is this : For years the 
 civil courts have been dealing out the most diabolical 
 injustice in the name of law, and I want to put a stop 
 
 Held (in Robinson vs. Reed), "that this prohibition extends to his re- 
 marriage with the plaintiff, who becomes by the divorce /emme sole an A 
 is not to be distinguished from any other femme sole, and the children 
 born of the second and bigamous marriage are not legitimate and can- 
 not inherit." 
 
 * City Court of Brooklyn; Moore vs. Moore; Action for divorce. 
 " Held, That, as the wife knew of the provision forbidding her hus- 
 band to re-marry during her lifetime, and as the decree in which that 
 provision was contained had been obtained upon her motion, the 
 second marriage of these previously divorced parties was illegal and 
 void; the plaintiff was not the legitimate wife of the husband, she 
 having married him while he was under a disability to remarry : and 
 as she was merely his mistress the children were illegitimate."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 53 
 
 to it. These divorces and re-marriages have become as 
 common as ditch-water, and the criminal side of the law 
 has refrained, through mistaken mercy and perhaps 
 motives of policy, from prosecuting them. Now, in 
 every case, without exception, when the man dies, and 
 his widow and children attempt to keep the property 
 he leaves it may be only a few acres of land, or only 
 a house, or, as in a case tried here in Watertown last 
 week, a milk route with a horse and wagon the civil 
 court steps in and takes it away from them. It brands 
 the woman as a mistress and the children as bastards, 
 and turns them, penniless and disgraced, out into the 
 world. If I let this case pass, when Robinson dies 
 his wife will be turned out of his house, the children 
 born to them will be declared illegitimate, and the 
 family will go on the town. These civil cases never 
 get into the newspapers, much less the Reports. No- 
 body ever hears of them. They are too common to 
 excite remark. The decision is misunderstood, for the 
 people think it is because the second marriage was not 
 properly performed or lacked some formality, and no 
 one takes warning. Only a criminal case is talked 
 about, or remembered, or understood. The conviction 
 of Faber caused widespread discussion, but it was on a 
 side issue.* Now this conviction will bring the sub- 
 
 * See note ante. Faber did not marry his divorced wife. He mar- 
 ried another woman. But this fact was not noticed by the court ; 
 nor was any distinction made by the Court of Appeals, in confirming 
 his sentence, between his marriage with his divorced wife and with 
 any other single woman. The offence had nothing to do with the 
 woman. It was the act of marriage. In the discussion of Faber's 
 case the only point to which attention was directed was that it was 
 hi^iiiny for a divorced man to remarry. Nobody observed that the 
 inhibition included his divorced wife, and it was taken for granted 
 >y the laymen that she was cxcepted from it.
 
 54 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 ject sharply and clearly before the public. There are 
 no side issues in it only the one fact. The newspapers 
 will take it up, and I shall use it as a lever to get the 
 law changed. Robinson will suffer ; but his conviction 
 will save thousands of families from ruin and disgrace, 
 and hundreds from being forced by these civil courts 
 into the ranks of the criminal classes." 
 
 Smith nodded. u Good for you, Frank. You are 
 perfectly right. I have nothing more to say." 
 
 " But I have. I want a friend, a lawyer, quick to 
 understand and apply. If I were not a district at- 
 torney, only a lawyer without practice, and I should be 
 present in a town where such a case was tried, I should 
 drop on the fact that it was not the man but the woman 
 who committed the bigamy ; that she was the real cul- 
 prit and he only an accessory ; I should know that the 
 grand jury would be in session, waiting to hear the re- 
 sult, and ready, if the man should be convicted, to bring 
 in an indictment for bigamy against the wife.* I 
 should know that this indictment could not be presented 
 in the court until the next morning at eleven o'clock, 
 and before that time came and the court issued a warrant 
 for her arrest, I should have that woman out of its juris- 
 diction, never to be brought back. I should know that the 
 district attorney could not, without violating his oath of 
 office, be a party to what I should do, or give me any 
 help ; but I should know that I was relieving his mind 
 of a heavy load of responsibility, and that even if T 
 were a stranger he would consider me the best friend 
 he ever had. I should know that nothing could save 
 
 * Both parties are equally guilty and receive the same punishment 
 see Sec. 301, Criminal Code provided the consort knows of the di- 
 vorce.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 55 
 
 ; i 
 
 the woman from conviction if the man were previously 
 
 ... A. */ 
 
 convicted, because 'she was the principal and he only 
 an accessory, and that even her counsel would advise 
 her to plead guilty, though a plea of guilty is practically 
 a bar to executive clemency. I should also know that 
 the district attorney would never seek out where the 
 woma/i went to, although he would have to prosecute 
 her when brought before the court, for " pigeon- 
 holing " such cases is not permitted by the honest 
 countryman ; only by the careless citizen." 
 
 " By the way, Frank," Smith says carelessly, ap- 
 parently taking no interest in what his friend had been 
 saying, " I forgot to tell you that I think of taking a 
 run down to the city to-morrow night on the 9.15 train ; 
 I had a letter from my wife, to-day, that makes it nec- 
 essary. You won't mind my cutting my visit short, 
 will you, under the circumstances? Our wives, you 
 know, are entitled to our first consideration. And 
 would you'mind telling my friends early in the morning 
 that I am going?" 
 
 Brooks laughed. " You cannot imagine what a relief 
 it will be to' me to have you go under the circum- 
 stances. A man who has married a wife with $ 30,000 
 a year ought certainly to obey her slightest wish 
 especially when she is as sweet and lovely as Mrs. Smith. 
 If I only had her, Billy, you might have her money and 
 welcome." 
 
 Smith blew one ring through another. " So it was 
 a ' mash '," he says slowly. " I thought so at the time. 
 I came near getting 'mashed' myself just before I came 
 here." 
 
 Brooks looks at him. " Aphrodite came back to 
 earth to a London barber, and Proserpine
 
 56 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 " Comes back to me. Thanks. I am as sorry for her 
 as the barber was for his Venus. It is very singular, 
 but I have been thinking all day of that first wife of 
 mine. It seems to me as if she were near me, some- 
 where. Do you know, Frank, a man loves only once 
 in his life and I loved her. I love her now, and always 
 will." 
 
 " She was a lovely and lovable child. I don't think 
 you treated her as well as you should have done." 
 
 " I did the best I could. My father made me go to 
 Europe. I was absolutely afraid of him and I was 
 only a boy. But before I left I went to Ridgeville, and 
 was told that she had gone to her sister's in Philadel- 
 phia. I wrote to her at Philadelphia, and advertised 
 the letters in the Philadelphia papers. When I came 
 back from Europe after father died, I spent several 
 thousand dollars advertising for her. I couldn't do 
 more." 
 
 Brooks makes no reply. 
 
 " What are you thinking about, Frank ? The case ? " 
 
 " The case ! No." 
 
 " Then it's Proserpine." 
 
 The other colors a trifle. Then he says gravely: 
 
 " Yes. How many legal wives have you, Billy ? " 
 
 " Only the two. What do you take me for, a 
 Turk ? " 
 
 " No, I was only thinking of your walking down Fifth 
 Avenue with a lawful wife on each arm I did not 
 know but that you might have a third following you 
 and Robinson, in a striped suit, breaking stones because 
 he tried to keep his one. I seemed to see the two pic- 
 tures one over the other." 
 
 " Perhaps you may," Smith rejoins carelessly. " Why 
 not ? You say it is the laic."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 There is grievous correction for him that forsaketh the right way. 
 
 Prov. xv. 10. 
 
 THE country court-room was crowded. Robinson's 
 arrest had astonished the country side if anything can 
 truthfully be said to astonish the American farmer. 
 How a man who never had had more than one wife 
 not even a dead one to add to the living one could 
 commit bigamy, puzzled him. He did not discuss the 
 question the American countryman never does that. 
 Discussion is left to the women ; he wastes no words 
 except in making speeches. He simply thought about 
 it, and this case required a great deal of thinking so 
 much that he became absent-minded. 
 
 The prisoner sat within the railing, on the left of his 
 counsel, an old man, evidently " set in his way," who 
 tried all cases on one model. Beside him were two 
 women, both extremely refined and pretty one re- 
 markably so. Robinson was a man of about thirty-five, 
 who had already begun to stoop. His face was rugged 
 and honest, but stern and vindictive ; that of a man to 
 be respected, but not loved or even sympathized with. 
 Smith's description from imagination fitted him fairly 
 well. 
 
 The district attorney, as he took his seat a little 
 nearer the clerk, glanced rather curiously at Robinson 
 and at the two women.
 
 58 IT IS THE J.A W. 
 
 " Remember they are your charge," he mutters to 
 Smith. 
 
 " Who and wich are they ? " 
 
 Brooks called an attendant. 
 
 " Mrs. Robinson and her sister, Mrs. Greene." 
 
 " What kind of a lawyer has he ? " 
 
 " The biggest ass, with the biggest reputation in the 
 county. He will be sure to bungle. I wish you had 
 the case." 
 
 Smith smiles absently, and continues his study of 
 Mrs. Greene's face, changing his position so that he can 
 do it uninterruptedly. 
 
 Two hours are spent in wrangling over the indict- 
 ment and in impanelling the jury. The motion to quash 
 the indictment is postponed by the judge until the prose- 
 cution has submitted its case. Brooks' opening speech 
 is exactly one minute long. He calls but two wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 The first is the gray-haired clergyman. He identifies 
 the prisoner as the man married on a certain date to the 
 woman who sits beside him. 
 
 Brooks offers in evidence a certified copy of the decree 
 of divorce between them. The judge marks it for iden- 
 tification, and the clergyman, continuing his testimony, 
 identifies the prisoner as the man married on the fifteenth 
 of the preceding month, in his church. 
 
 The cross-examination merely establishes the fact 
 that he was married on each occasion to the same 
 woman. 
 
 "Jane Greene ! " calls the crier. 
 
 Mrs. Greene takes the chair and is sworn. Brooks 
 asks her only a few questions. She was present at both 
 marriages and identifies the prisoner. She was present
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 59 
 
 jit the hearing of the evidence in the divorce suit before 
 the referee. The prisoner was the plaintiff. The 
 woman he married, June 15, was the defendant in the 
 divorce case. The copy of the decree is of that granted 
 in his suit against her sister, and her sister and he were 
 remarried June 15. 
 
 " Your witness." remarks Brooks ; " and my case," 
 he adds sotto voce. 
 
 A great inspiration comes to the defendant's attorney. 
 There is but this woman's testimony to prove the 
 prisoner is the person named in the decree. Her testi- 
 mony must be broken down. He has but the one 
 method. He knows no other. 
 
 " Your name is Jane Greene. What was it before 
 you married Mr. Greene ? " 
 
 " Jane Smith," she replies with a slight flush. 
 
 "That was your maiden name? " 
 
 " No. It was Williams." 
 
 Smith, with a face as white as his shirt-front, whis- 
 ers hurriedly to Brooks. He has been expecting it, but 
 it is no less a shock. 
 
 " You were married previously to your marriage with 
 Mr. Greene, last year ? " 
 
 " 1 object," says Brooks, plainly disturbed. " The 
 witness is not on trial. Her marital relations are not 
 before the court." 
 
 " I will permit the question, although I can see no 
 object in it. You may answer." 
 
 " I had been married previously." 
 
 " Was your first husband dead, or had you obtained a 
 divorce when you married Mr. Greene ? " thunders the 
 counsel, certain from the emotion shown by the District 
 Attorney that he has struck the weak point.
 
 60 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 " Do not answer, Mrs. Smith," says Brooks quickly. 
 " Let me answer for you. I am Willie's friend, Frank. 
 If the court please, I wish to enter my earnest pro- 
 test with my objection to dragging into this case, for no 
 object whatever, the great grief and great sorrow that 
 came twelve years ago to the witness and to our hon- 
 ored guest." 
 
 At this there was a sensation. The witness looked 
 at Smith fixedly for a moment, rose with a gasp and a 
 sob, and sank back fainting in the chair. Smith sprang 
 over the counsel's table and lifted her up, calling for a 
 glass of water, which the judge handed to him. It was 
 hardly needed, for she opened her eyes immediately, and 
 sobbed, "-Willie ! Willie ! " 
 
 "If the counsel wishes, we will admit," continues 
 Brooks, in a voice that echoes through the room like a 
 minor chord of music, " that the witness, twelve years 
 ago, married my friend who now supports her. They 
 were little more than children at the time, and to my 
 knowledge were forcibly separated after a few months 
 of married life, not to meet again or hear of one another's 
 existence until the present moment. As soon as her 
 husband reached man's estate, he began his search for 
 his lost wife a search in which he has spent a fortune 
 and which ends to day and here." A thrill of emotion 
 and a wave of applause ran unchecked through the 
 room. " She waited for him the five years fixed by law, 
 as her evidence shows ; she waited for him another five 
 years yet, and it was not until over ten years had passed, 
 until she had been free for five years to remarry, that 
 she took other bonds. Her husband is known to the 
 court as a member of the bar and of the State Legisla- 
 ture. Will the counsel insist upon him and upon me
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 61 
 
 going upon the witness-stand to protect her fair fame 
 and honor from his wanton and idle assault ? " 
 
 " It will not be necessary," is the sharp reply of the 
 court. " Mr. Billings, have you any more questions to 
 ask the witness ? Mr. Smith," his voice is more than 
 kind, " take your wife to my private room." 
 
 He has not waited for reply, but Billings is not 
 capable of any. He is paralyzed at the blunder he has 
 made. 
 
 " This is the case for the people." 
 
 Billings suggests a recess for dinner, and it is taken, 
 to everybody's delight. The case before the court is 
 forgotten in the romance it has revealed. 
 
 " Do I remember you ? " asks Mrs. Robinson, as Brooks 
 takes her hands. "Does any woman ever forget her 
 first sweetheart ? I was only twelve, and in short frocks, 
 but you made me think I was a princess in a long train. 
 I knew well enough that it was only to keep me from 
 interfering between Willie and Jane, but all the girls 
 were wild over you, and it was the sweetest triumph I 
 ever had. O, Frank," and a great sob came as she real- 
 ized who and what he was, " you will be merciful 
 to us ! " 
 
 ' As I can, dear Fanny. If you were my own sister, 
 my mother, or my daughter, your interests could not 
 have been more carefully guarded than they already 
 have been. A month from now, perhaps sooner, when 
 you fully realize from what an abyss I have saved 
 you, you will thank me. But promise me," he said, in 
 an undertone which only she heard, " promise me that- 
 for twenty -four hours you will be guided solely by Willie. 
 He is one of the very best lawyers in the state, he un- 
 derstands the law in this case, and Billings don't ; and
 
 62 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 you must do what he says, blindly, and without asking 
 any questions. Will you ? " 
 
 " Yes," she says frankly, " I promise you." 
 
 " And I know the value of your promises," he says, in 
 a tone of relief. " Dominie, are you and Mrs. Freeman 
 waiting to take Mrs. Robinson to dinner ? The judge 
 has already carried off Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This will 
 be walnuts and raisins to him." 
 
 Brooks invites two of his friends to dinner, but he 
 is not good company. They imagine his thoughts are 
 with his speech to the jury, but he never even remem- 
 bers that he is to make one. They are far away, with 
 " Proserpine." 
 
 After the recess the real battle begins. Billings has 
 made the additional blunder of treating the case with 
 contempt from the first. Instead of studying, he has 
 ridiculed it. " Ten words of common-sense will blow 
 it out of court," he has confidently predicted. But his 
 blunder of the morning has made him lose confidence 
 in himself, and the ten words seem hard to find. He 
 begins by showing good character. 
 
 The District Attorney admits it, and in a few well- 
 chosen words, pays a tribute to the prisoner's previous 
 life and character that leaves nothing more to be said. 
 No witnesses are needed. 
 
 Then the usual motions are argued to quash the in- 
 dictment and to dismiss the case, and Billings finds, to 
 his astonishment, that he is but an unarmed naked 
 savage fighting with a giant clothed in mail and armed 
 with weapons of precision. Decision after decision is 
 cast upon his defenceless head, case after case is thrust 
 at him ; and with none is he familiar. Every point he 
 makes is passed to pne side and shown to be aliunde.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 63 
 
 His " common-sense " hides its head and cannot be 
 found as the " majesty of the law " is unveiled to his 
 slow-working mind. 
 
 The audience listen with breathless interest to the 
 sweet-voiced, gentle replies of the young District At- 
 torney, and nod their heads at each plain and unanswer- 
 able argument. His reasoning is close, his constructions 
 strict, but his words are so simple, his logic so clear, 
 that they wonder how any one can contradict what he 
 says. They look with astonishment at the man whom 
 they have hitherto considered invincible, and wonder if 
 he is getting too old and losing his powers. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Smith do not return to the court-room, 
 and Mrs. Robinson comes in late, taking a seat at the 
 farther end of the counsel's table, which runs perpen- 
 dicularly to the judge's desk and parallel to the jury 
 box, only a narrow lane leading to the witness-chair 
 beside the judge separating the two. Her husband sits 
 at the side of the table, directly behind Billings, and 
 close to her. The railed enclosure is crowded with the 
 members of the bar, keenly interested in the law points 
 involved. 
 
 The counsel's plea for his client is really one of his 
 best efforts. Once on his feet before the jury, once 
 away from the magnetic influence of those keen gray 
 eyes, once freed from the consciousness that through his 
 own stupidity he is fighting at an enormous disadvan- 
 tage his foot is on his native heath and his name is 
 once more Billings. More, he is spurred to the con- 
 sciousness that he has lost ground to redeem, and he ex- 
 erts himself as never before in his life to save the case. 
 He knows now that it is desperate, and he understands 
 .that if he loses it, his reputation and income will be
 
 64 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 seriously injured. He appeals for sympathy, for mercy, 
 and he overdoes it. 
 
 " If he only knew when to stop," whispers one lawyer 
 to another. 
 
 The sweet voice and gentle manner of Brooks is a 
 striking contrast to the rolling thunder and contortions 
 of the other. His short sentences, unadorned by super- 
 fluous adjectives or striking tropes, are a relief to the ear. 
 There is a slight languor, a touch of sadness, that cap- 
 tures the jury in a moment, and the foreman gives a 
 glance to his neighbor, as if to say, " How glad he would 
 be if he did not have to speak, and could let the case go !" 
 
 " There is one point, gentlemen," he says, just before 
 the brief address closes, " which, but for a circumstance 
 that has happened here to-day, I should not have men- 
 tioned. The prisoner's counsel has painted me as a Sioux 
 warrior, skulking up to a happy home in the dead of night, 
 and firing the house, in order that I may brain with my 
 tomahawk the half-naked women and children as they 
 rush out." 
 
 The jurymen look into his face as he pauses for a 
 moment, and a broad smile comes upon every lip. But 
 there is no answering smile on his, only a deepening 
 shade of sadness, and they sympathetically and intently 
 look at him to see what is coming. 
 
 " You have listened closely to the law arguments that 
 have been made before his honor, and I need not recall 
 to your minds the score or more of cases cited, where 
 two parties remarried after divorce, lived happily until 
 one died, and then the civil court stepped in, seized the 
 property left by the dead, turned the adulteress into the 
 highway, and sent the bastard children to the county 
 poorhouse. This is the end, in the civil courts, gentle-
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 65 
 
 men, of every such remarriage. It will be the end of this, 
 if you do not put up a bar forbidding it. No verdict of 
 yours can make it legal. These two may live together 
 in adultery, if you wish. But their children will be the 
 children of shame, which no human power can save them 
 from." 
 
 Mrs. Robinson bowed her head and shaded her face 
 with her hand. The fierce vindictive light died out of 
 Robinson's eyes. Even the judge leaned forward, intently 
 listening. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen, if there had been present at any one 
 of these marriages one who understood the law, one who 
 knewit was not a lawful marriage, and that the parties to 
 it had merely agreed to live together in open adultery 
 not, as they thought, in lawful wedlock what would you 
 think of him, gentlemen, if he had held his peace ? if he 
 had not warned them of the sin they were about to com- 
 mit ? if he had not pointed out the misery to flow from it, 
 the scorn and disgrace it would put upon the head of 
 innocent children ? But suppose they had insisted. 
 Would he not have been justified in knocking the man 
 down to prevent it ? 
 
 " One year ago, when I took upon myself the duties of 
 county attorney, I resolved that whenever such a mar- 
 riage took place, and I could prevent the adultery, I 
 would do it at any cost of popularity or reputation. It 
 was idle to move in cases where the adultery already ex- 
 isted it would be cruel to deprive those living in sin of a 
 few years or a few months of happiness the disgrace was 
 certain to be stamped upon them sooner or later. But 
 if I could spare two innocent people this brand of sin and 
 shame, if I could keep one bastard from being born into 
 the world, I resolved to do it, even if I had to knock the 
 man down, or bring him face to face with you."
 
 66 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 "When I read of this marriage, I went myself to 
 Tipton. I learned, two hours after the marriage, that 
 Mrs. Robinson had gone straight from the church to 
 Fairview, to nurse her dying sister, leaving the prisoner 
 behind. I was in time to prevent adultery, and I did 
 prevent it. No blush of shame can ever come to her 
 fair cheek if you now raise up the barrier between them. 
 No bastard children will ever call her mother. No 
 brand of adulteress will ever be burned upon her hand. 
 She is as pure and as innocent as when a child. She is 
 free from sin and from the suspicion of sin. So is the 
 prisoner. I bring them both to you "without a stain on 
 their name or their honor, and I ask you to save them 
 from the black pit in which they were about to plunge." 
 
 " Thank God ! Thank God ! " ejaculated Robinson, 
 burying his face in his hands, while his whole body 
 shook with suppressed emotion. Mrs. Robinson raised 
 her eyes to Brooks, careless of the falling tears, and half 
 extended her hands resting on the table , pride, gratitude, 
 and thankfulness struggling for mastery. Half the 
 women in the audience were sobbing ; and all but one 
 of those present were more or less affected. Billings 
 was the solitary exception. He sat bolt upright, scan- 
 dalized and shocked. Nothing so improper, so illegal, so 
 unprofessional had he ever known before. 
 
 In a few additional words, passionless yet full of 
 repressed feeling for Robinson, Brooks ended his speech, 
 leaving upon the minds of every one who was listening, 
 including the defendant, the firm conviction that a 
 verdict of guilty would be a triumphant vindication of 
 the accused, and an act of love and mercy to all con- 
 cerned. 
 
 The verdict was a forgone conclusion. The judge 
 charged briefly, merely emphasizing the point that the
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 67 
 
 jury should think only of the facts and whether the 
 allegations in the indictment had been proven by the 
 testimony, leaving all other questions to the court. 
 
 " Have you anything to say why sentence should not 
 be pronounced ? " asks the judge kindly, as Robinson 
 stands at the bar. 
 
 " Nothing, your honor, except that I shall never cease 
 to thank you all for the kindness shown to me ; and my 
 Heavenly Father that Mr. Brooks has done what he did. 
 He has shown me my error, and I would much prefer 
 to be punished than to have been left to sin." 
 
 " You have the sympathy of the court, of the jury, 
 and of all who have listened to the case. Your offence 
 is purely a technical one. Under the circumstances I 
 consider it proper to impose the lowest sentence one 
 year's imprisonment." 
 
 As Billings makes no motion, Brooks whispers to a 
 young lawyer, and the latter, coming forward to the rail, 
 asks the court to grant a stay. The judge looks at 
 Brooks, who whispers to him for a minute, and then 
 paralyzes Billings by granting it. 
 
 There are three passengers on the 9.15 train. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Robinson who exchange at 
 Rome to the express from Chicago to New York. 
 
 There is very little conversation ; but, as they lie side 
 by side in the section, Fanny puts her arm over Jane 
 and whispers, for the train is motionless : 
 
 " I shall love Frank Brooks all my life. He is the 
 best man in the world." 
 
 " When he sent your husband to prison and made 
 you a fugitive from justice ! " 
 
 " But he saved me from sin, and it is not his fault. It 
 is the law"
 
 68 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The heart of her husband trusteth in her, 
 And he shall have no lack of spoil. 
 
 Prov. xxxr, 2. 
 
 HONESTY is sometimes the best policy. The great 
 drawback is the impossibility of telling when. The Hon. 
 William Smith was too good a politician to take any 
 chances, but at the present moment, 9.30 A.M., as he 
 sits in his pleasant dining-room, pretending to read the 
 morning paper while awaiting his junior wife's advent, 
 he feels like an operator with his whole fortune invested 
 in a " straddle ; " and desperate enough to commit any 
 folly. 
 
 It was not until his senior wife and her sister had 
 been safely housed at the Grand Union, and, after a light 
 breakfast, had gone to their room for a little rest, that 
 any thought of Mabelle had crossed his mind. His 
 home was not half-a-dozen blocks from the hotel, and 
 mechanically his steps had turned in that direction. The 
 waitress had stared at him when she entered to set 
 the table, and had asked the cook if she knew he had 
 returned; receiving the cook's usual morning snort. 
 Why cooks always get out of bed on the wrong side is 
 a social problem yet unsolved. 
 
 He had made up his mind to nothing. He had not 
 even considered any course of action. He was in a 
 " hole," a very deep one, and that was about all that he 
 was perfectly conscious of.
 
 IT IS THE LA Jr. G9 
 
 " Why, Billy ! " exclaims his wife, as she enters with 
 Gypsy, "what's the matter? Didn't the trout bite? 
 Have you and Frank quarrelled at last? Or were the 
 petticoats shy ? " 
 
 " Business," he replies briefly. " When did you re- 
 turn from Carter's ? " 
 
 " Yesterday." 
 
 They have shaken hands, and she is standing beside 
 him, looking into his face. 
 
 " You look worried. Is it anything about money ? " 
 she asks kindly. 
 
 "No," he replies, unguardedly ; "but something I 
 want your advice about." 
 
 He had had no intention the second before of men- 
 tioning the matter to her. The kind voice had been a 
 straw at which he had unconsciously grasped. 
 
 " Well," she replies, taking her seat and ringing the 
 bell, " we will let it wait till after breakfast. It can't 
 be anything very serious. You let little things disturb 
 you and never worry over great ones. You came in on 
 the night train and have had your breakfast, I suppose ; 
 but take a cup of tea with us." 
 
 A light smile is on Smith's lips as he takes his seat, 
 grimly thinking of the " little thing" he has on his mind. 
 
 "Well, Gyp, how did you pass the Fourth? " 
 
 "There was no noise," replies his sister, languidly. 
 
 She is a young lady of very uncertain age when you 
 look at her face or watch her manner anywhere between 
 twelve and twenty. Look down at the inch of black 
 stocking between her boot-tops and the hem of her dress, 
 and you know she is between fourteen and sixteen. 
 
 " And is that all you can say?" 
 
 " That's all there is to say. There were two children
 
 70 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 there, who served the purpose of children well enough ; 
 they annoyed visitors. And there was no noise. I can 
 think of nothing else." 
 
 His sister always amuses Smith. " There was a 
 nephew also. Where does he come in ? " 
 
 " Nowhere. He made love to his aunt, and flirted 
 with Belle under his aunt's nose. She was as jealous as 
 sin, and it was amusing for an hour ; but one gets tired 
 of the same scene and the same actors when it lasts 
 longer, and is only talk. The entertainment is too 
 cheap. I went to sleep." 
 
 " You have a different story to tell ? " Smith turns to 
 his wife. 
 
 " Indeed I have. I enjoyed myself very much. The 
 air was heavenly ; the weather delicious ; and Dick was 
 charming." 
 
 Smith looks at his sister and laughs. 
 
 " A very little satisfies Belle," she says wearily. 
 "She finds tongues in trees and sermons in stones and 
 something to laugh at in the most commonplace." 
 
 " That's the first quotation I ever heard you make. I 
 never saw you read a book in my life." 
 
 " It isn't right. There's something that should be in 
 it about books and brooks that I don't remember. I 
 heard it read in school." She is aggrieved. 
 
 " Tell me honestly, Sis, when did you find out that 
 your dolls were stuffed with saw-dust ? " 
 
 " I never had a doll in my life, and you know it." 
 Now she is indignant. " And dolls are not stuffed with 
 sawdust," she added. ' k I bought one to take up for one 
 of those children, and they pulled it to pieces the first 
 hour. It was stuffed with cotton." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Smith, with a sigh as of relief. " Now I
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 7J 
 
 see where the very young ladies of the present day get 
 their first lesson in art. But when did you learn that 
 the world was hollow ? " 
 
 "Years ago in school. Every thing is like everything 
 else. It don't matter much what happens. It is just 
 what would be if nothing should have happened. There 
 are no heroes any more ; nothing that we read about or 
 heard about in school ; and I don't believe there ever 
 was anything of the kind. People were just as common- 
 place then as a mob on a Coney Island boat is now." 
 
 " I would like to see your ideal hero, the fairy prince 
 you dream about." 
 
 " I haven't any. I don't dream. There's only one 
 man in the world I would care to talk to for five min- 
 utes or to have introduced to me and that's John L. 
 Sullivan." 
 
 " You may get over that later," laughs Belle. " You 
 may come to a time, Gypsy, when you will be glad to 
 have even Dr. Deems or Lester Wallack talk to you for 
 half an hour." 
 
 Gypsy shivers. 
 
 " Pray don't suggest anything so horrid," she says 
 rising. " If you will excuse me I will take Chump out 
 for a walk." 
 
 The three go iipstairs together, for it is the typical 
 New York house, soap-box model standing on end, with 
 the side to the street. The dining-room is the front 
 basement. But behind the two long parlors "draw- 
 ing-room " is not the proper word there is an extension 
 which is one of the pleasantest and most restful rooms 
 in New York. This is Mrs. Smith's, into which no foot 
 may come without an invitation. There are books and 
 pictures and a statuette or two ; but its charm is in its
 
 72 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 couches and easy-chairs. It is a shrine to Beauty, Com- 
 fort, Rest. There is nothing handsome and nothing 
 pretty and nothing to admire nothing to " show ; " but 
 there is rest and comfort for the tired eye or the wearied 
 body or the irritated nerve. And there is the beauty 
 that gratifies the hunger of the soul. It is not a boudoir ; 
 to call it' such were desecration.* It is a retreat. 
 
 " Now tell me what is on your mind, Billy ? " She 
 has shown him a little picture that had been sent home 
 in his absence, and he has caught the beauty of the set- 
 ting. 
 
 " I met Jane at Watertown." 
 
 " Sit down and tell me about it." 
 
 She is grave and shocked, but listens intently to the 
 story. He tells it fully, exactly as it happened, and the 
 very simplicity of his words makes his description ex- 
 ceedingly dramatic. His grasp of the facts, his power 
 of presentation, show that Brooks' judgment is correct. 
 
 " So you took them to the hotel and came straight to 
 me," she says, with a faint flush. 
 
 She has been standing by the mantel during the latter 
 part of the story, with her face half averted. 
 
 * Properly speaking, a boudoir is a harem, fitted up for the exclusive use 
 of a single wife or concubine and lier female attendants and eunuchs, 
 to which her husband is the only male admitted. Among Occidental 
 nations it takes the place of the harem in the East, and is the " survi- 
 val " of the latter among nations that have reduced the number of wives 
 to one. It is not out of place in an English house, where the 
 wife is the private and personal property of the husband; but in 
 America, where she is in all respects the social and political equal of 
 the husband, the wife who apes the Oriental slavery of women by 
 fitting up one for herself, is on an equal footing with the man who 
 builds a summer house in the country in exact imitation of a sixth 
 century "castle," with moat and drawbridge. A husband's den might 
 as properly be fitted upon the model of a Thibetan andron aud given 
 its name.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 73 
 
 There is only a step between them. She takes it, 
 stands beside him for a moment, and then sits down up- 
 on his knees, but facing him, her hands resting lightly 
 upon his shoulders, her eyes looking into his. She bends 
 and lightly touches his forehead with her lips. 
 
 Honesty has been the best policy by a fluke. Never 
 before in their married life had she voluntarily kissed 
 him ; never before had she had any reason to trust him 
 or distrust him for that matter. She knew what he 
 was. He had taken infinite pains to show her the vilest 
 side of man. 
 
 " Whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing." She 
 looks into his eyes, at herself, and smiles at the thought. 
 
 Smith, to whom the wisdom of Solomon is unknown, 
 looks a little perplexed. His wife has long ago grown 
 beyond him. Her moods and tenses are like the sum- 
 mer wind when it woos, and he had told the literal 
 truth when he had said that he had been " nearly 
 mashed on her " himself. If he had told the whole truth 
 he would have said that he had run away from her 
 influence to " keep from making a fool of himself." 
 Eminently practical, he imagined that he never indulged 
 in any of old Bill Allen's barren idealities, and had 
 caught himself tripping in a quarter where such a thing 
 was unexpected. 
 
 There was not another woman whom he had ever met 
 that he would have run away from. It was the first 
 thing of the kind, lie said to himself, that he had ever 
 " thrown over his shoulder." But all others had been, 
 and all others would be, simple questions in practical 
 politics how much he could get. This was something 
 entirely different ; something in which he had had no 
 experience a question of how much he could give, lie 
 was wise, so he ran a\vav.
 
 74 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 She smiles at his confusion. ' Xow that you have 
 found her, Billy, what do you propose doing with her ? '' 
 
 " I haven't thought anything about it. What shall 
 I do ? What can I do ? " 
 
 " They are all poor ? " 
 
 " As church mice." 
 
 " You must support her. You must make her just as 
 happy and comfortable as she can be. That's the first 
 thing. I will take charge of the sister. She shall be 
 my expense." 
 
 " And you won't object ? " 
 
 " Why should I, Billy ? She is your legal, lawful 
 wife. She has not only a prior claim, but a higher 
 claim. You loved her, and you never loved me. You 
 love her still. When you found her you forgot all about 
 me for hours. Don't deny it. Your color is a confes- 
 sion." 
 
 " But," he says, impelled out of all usual caution, lie 
 does not understand by what, " I want you to distinctly 
 understand, Belle, that I would not have your little fin- 
 ger ache for such as these ; that I am ready to do what- 
 ever you think right and proper; but that I will -not lose 
 or exchange you for all the woman I ever loved or ever 
 will love. You are worth all the other women in the world 
 put together. There is not one like you, no, not one. 
 I found this out nearly two years ago. I haven't said 
 anything about it to you it seemed to me an imperti- 
 nence. I have appreciated the fact more highly than you 
 have any idea of. If I could blot out those first two 
 years, I would be a different man, for I know the bar- 
 rier they raise up between us ; but that is impossible. 
 They have robbed you of all the delight of girlhood and 
 stolen the joys of womanhood that should be just un-
 
 IT IS THE LA \r. 75 
 
 folding. It, is the only crime I ever had on my con- 
 science, and lately I have been thinking that it has per- 
 haps been in a measure condoned. Don't suggest any- 
 thing that will part us, or anything that will come be- 
 tween us." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that you prefer me to your 
 boyhood's sweetheart, the woman you love ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do. As I prefer Frank to all men in the 
 world, so I prefer you to all women." 
 
 There was not the slightest doubt of his sincerity, and 
 it certainly pleased her. In fact, she was nattered at 
 the whole affair more than she had any reason to be if 
 she had known the exact truth. 
 
 " Why ? " It was asked through curiosity, not co- 
 quetry. 
 
 " I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. Perhaps 
 it's because you have brains ; because you read and 
 think of things which never concern me ; because you 
 lead a totally different life to mine, and we two make a 
 day and a night together." 
 
 " But you used to tell me that you only cared for 
 high-bosomed maids, that unless a woman was " 
 
 44 And I don't now," he interrupts. "And I don't 
 suppose I ever will. It's my nature. It was because 
 Jane was my ideal of the perfect woman that I fell in 
 love with her and married her. If she had been squint- 
 eyed, I should not. If she had been thin-shanked, I 
 should not. But you are independent of any question 
 of physical perfection. Such an idea never arises with 
 a thought of you, in any one's mind. You seem singled 
 out from all the other women in the world ; to be ui 
 generia. You charm by some other means." 
 
 " Are you quite sure, Billy, you could not have loved
 
 70 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 her if she had been thin-shanked ? We will take the 
 squint for granted." 
 
 She is amused. She ought not to have been. It was 
 highly indecorous ; but she was alone with her husband, 
 and she was only a moral woman, not the " good " 
 woman found in novels only or perhaps in heaven 
 never on earth. 
 
 "You know I did not even think of you when I 
 spoke." He is distressed, and she laughs softly. 
 
 " Never mind, Billy, don't make it worse. The fault 
 is not often incurable in the young. To return to our 
 ewes. Why not put them in Mrs. Lyons' flat in the 
 Thirtieth Street house. It is a little gem of seven 
 rooms, exquisitely furnished, and she wishes to sell the 
 furniture as it stands everything except her wardrobe. 
 She is going abroad for two or three years, and will sell 
 it at half the cost of refurnishing in a much cheaper way. 
 Everything is in such perfect taste that it will save 
 them trouble and embarrassment." 
 
 " But that will be expensive ! " 
 
 " I do not think it will be expensive enough, if any- 
 thing. She is your wife. You are not worried for 
 money. Even if you are, save on something else. A 
 man who keeps two wives must expect to pay for the 
 privilege." 
 
 " Do you know that you cost me nothing ? " he asks, 
 after a moment's pause. 
 
 She colors. She has never had occasion to ask him 
 for a dollar, and no question of money has ever been 
 discussed between them. Her allowance has always 
 been more than she wanted, and she has a large sum in 
 the bank, in her own name, subject to her order, from 
 the surplus he has refused to take back.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 77 
 
 " When we were married," he continued, " I was at 
 the end of my rope, and financially ruined. Your for- 
 tune came just in time to save me. I never used a 
 dollar for myself ; I never risked a cent in speculations. 
 It is all locked up in. trust funds or real estate, exactly 
 where your mother left it. But the mere possession of 
 it, the fact that I could rob you if I were scamp enough 
 to, gave me credit. Nobody expected me to be honest, 
 and I did not injure myself by encouraging the idea 
 that I was. The credit tided me over the worst part, 
 and I used it for all it was worth afterward. I am worth 
 about one-third what you are, and I owe it all to you. 
 The money to support this house, whatever you spend, 
 comes from your estate ; all other expenses, the Rose- 
 dale house and whatever I spend, from mine. You are 
 perfectly right, and I will hereafter have the expenses 
 of this house charged to my account." 
 
 " No, you will do nothing of the kind. I never 
 thought that my words could be so taken. You will 
 distress me beyond measure if you do. Such a thought 
 as that I had any property of my own has hardly ever 
 come to me. Let me continue to cost you nothing." 
 
 He shakes his head. 
 
 " Now that the subject is up, let me say that I have 
 been intending for some time to speak to you about it. 
 1 have felt as if it were your house, not mine, and that I 
 might come home some night and find my trunks on 
 the sidewalk and the door locked. A wife need not 
 live with her husband unless she wishes to. Did you 
 know that ? " 
 
 "And where do I come in ? Am I to have a husband 
 who costs me nothing in fact who supports me ? Go 
 to, my uncle. That is not modern marriage. Have I not
 
 78 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 equal rights and equal sensitiveness on such a question ? 
 But I will be good and yielding, as a dutiful wife ought 
 to be. I will compromise with you. Let us spend our 
 own money as we have been doing, and divide ex- 
 penses on the house just as if I were Frank. Please, 
 Billy ! Please, Uncle William ! " 
 
 The last two words produce the desired result. He 
 yields. 
 
 " You know that I would let you do anything rather 
 than Lave you call me that." 
 
 It is a growl, at which she laughs. 
 
 " And now that I have reduced my household expenses 
 one-half a good morning's work I will tell you that 
 I propose applying the money to Fanny. I will set her 
 up in some business for which she is fitted. Tell me 
 about her all you know." 
 
 " She is about your height, rather dark than fair, with 
 particularly bright eyes, and a sweet, refined face. She 
 has some musical talent. She was organist and soprano 
 in the choir and she was the district-school teacher be- 
 fore marriage." 
 
 Belle muses for a moment. " I think I shall like 
 her." 
 
 " You don't ask me about Jane." 
 
 " It is not necessary. I can see her." 
 
 " Tell me what you think she is like." 
 
 " She is quite fair. Her hair is brown. She is 
 twenty-eight years old, so she has filled out and is get- 
 ting stout. She has a twenty-six inch waist, a forty- 
 two inch bust, and a twenty inch shank. At forty she 
 will be a Mullingar heifer beef to the heels ; but at 
 present she is what you have so often described to me 
 as a ' delicious armful.' I think she is ten or twenty
 
 IT IS THE LA IF. 70 
 
 pounds heavier than your idea of an angel, and that if 
 she sat on your knee for an hour you would admit it 
 at once." 
 
 She has hit the mark as closely as if she had studied 
 Jane for hours. He laughs uneasily. 
 
 " But you haven't seen her. How can you tell ? 
 Are you a clairvoyant? " 
 
 " I know your ideal at sixteen, and what it is at 
 twenty-eight. It is simple enough. All you care foi- 
 ls flesh. You love through your eyes." . 
 
 He is hurt. " That's not fair. So do poets and 
 sculptors." 
 
 " No. They admire through their eyes and love 
 through their intellect. They regard outside beauty only 
 as the casket covering beauty of mind and soul. Their 
 love is kept for what it contains. You admire a beau- 
 tiful dress on a beautiful woman particularly when it 
 enhances the beauty that it does not conceal ; but hang 
 it upon a spike, put it on a bean pole, and you would 
 laugh. Yet you have made the flesh covering the 
 woman your only worship. You have loved twenty 
 women, but you have never yet been satisfied with 
 any. You have found mere beauty of form and it 
 has been grossness rather than beauty a will-o'-the- 
 wisp. You never admit it, but I know it. That's what 
 your constant changes mean. Now you have brains, 
 and I predict this fate for you, Billy. Some time you 
 will meet a thin, lean woman, between thirty-five and 
 fifty, without shape or form ; not hideous and not fair, 
 but with beautiful eyes revealing a lovely soul ; a 
 woman of intellect. You will worship her. You will 
 become her slave. Your love for her will last the rest 
 of your life. A kiss from her will mean more and be
 
 80 IT IS THE LA IF. 
 
 more highly prized than all the favors combined that 
 you ever received. You will look back with wonder on 
 your past as incomprehensible." 
 
 "And what fate will come to you?" There is a 
 curious tone in his voice she does not notice. She is 
 thinking of something. 
 
 " I ? O, I shall fall in love with some idiot, break 
 my heart, become a woman of high fashion, and set the 
 example of extreme propriety for all the others to 
 follow." 
 
 Her words rasp him. " Don't talk like that. It hurts 
 me." 
 
 " Don't you think you deserve a little pain for asking 
 such a question ? But there's a curious complication 
 you haven't explained. What are you going to do with 
 Mr. Greene ? Who is he, and where is he ? You didn't 
 bring him with you. Is he to come on later ? Is Jane 
 to have two husbands, and are you to have two wives ? 
 and shall I have to marry Greene to even up matters ? 
 Or must he and I remain as we are ? Discuss that 
 unto me." 
 
 She leaned back in her easy-chair, her hands behind 
 her head, one slender foot resting on the brass fender. 
 
 Smith made no answer for a moment. Then he broke 
 out : " Curse him ! he is the fly in the ointment." 
 
 She looks at him with a smile in which there is mal- 
 ice. She has kept the sting back until she has had 
 provocation. 
 
 " He was a clerk in the village store, " he con- 
 tinues. " Two weeks before the trial he went to Rome to 
 make some purchases and pay a mortgage of six hun- 
 dred dollars. He ' skipped ' with the money, and has 
 not been heard from since. That's all I know about
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 81 
 
 him. His photograph, which I saw, shows the sneak in 
 every line of his face." 
 
 " How long has Jane lived with him ? " 
 
 " Nearly two years." 
 
 " And how long did you live with Jane ? " 
 
 She is merciless. 
 
 " Three months." 
 
 He is impatient. She asks no more. She lets the 
 inflammation rise. 
 
 " Well," he says, " why don't you continue the cross- 
 examination ? " 
 
 " I didn't suppose you liked it." 
 
 " I don't. No witness does. Finish it now and get 
 through with it." 
 
 " If he comes back and claims Jane, what will you 
 do ? " 
 
 " He is welcome to take and keep her," he says sav- 
 agely. 
 
 " Then you object to sharing her with him ? " 
 
 The question is a careless half-affirmation. 
 
 He checks the outburst barely in time, flushes to the 
 hair with shame, for he sees the hidden drift, and does 
 not answer. 
 
 A man is never satisfied with a victory. A woman is 
 and she is a woman to the very nails. 
 
 When the stillness has grown oppressive, she asks, 
 " You will have to change your plans for the summer. 
 I intended to start for Chicago to-morrow night, but if 
 you need me, I will stay a few days to help you make 
 Jane comfortable." 
 
 " Then stay. I do need you." 
 
 " I will not l>e a killjoy, a " 
 
 " Stop," he interrupts sternly. " Drop that cynicism, 
 6
 
 82 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 Mabelle, which, thank God, I know is not natural. I 
 taught it to you, to my shame and bitter sorrow. I en- 
 deavored to break down the prejudices and traditions 
 that make women shrink from the natural man, to 
 familiarize you with and to cauterize your Derceptions 
 of the vices of my sex. You were such a sweet and 
 dainty prude, so horrified at everything, that the temp- 
 tation came and was irresistible. I have failed, Mabelle. 
 With the child I may have succeeded in holding them 
 in check by main strength, but in the woman, you know 
 that by natural revulsion they have reasserted themselves 
 with stronger force, and that what the natural woman, 
 what under other circumstances even you might have 
 tolerated, you now shrink from with abhorrence. You 
 try to deceive me when you smile at them and worse 
 than them. Unless you still hate me with the bitter, 
 black hatred that once filled your heart a hatred for 
 which I honor you you will never let me hear again 
 such false and untrue words from your lips. I know 
 that your cynicism is but a mask, your complaisance 
 but a cloak which your pride compels you to wear in 
 order that I may be tormented with the thought that I 
 have succeeded in making the Frankenstein monster 
 which my work would have resulted in with any other 
 child. I know that you are a good and noble woman, 
 robbed of the illusions of youth, and saddened by knowl- 
 edge that never should have been given you. I know 
 that I am unworthy your companionship. When you 
 plunge down to my level, to meet me, it is in scorn and 
 derision to punish me by showing what I wanted you 
 to be. Never do it again ; never ! Help me rather to 
 come to you. You shall not come down into the mud 
 and filth where I am. You shall not, I say."
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 83 
 
 She sat and listened, with dry eyes and burning cheeks, 
 looking down at her fingers lacing and interlacing as 
 they lay in her lap. It was a new phase of her husband's 
 character a revelation as surprising as it was unex- 
 pected. She knew that what he had said was true. 
 She knew that she loathed in her mind whatever was 
 untrue to the highest standards of right ; that she had 
 given way to many temptations to sin against the tradi- 
 tions of her sex in order to punish him. He had wanted 
 her to be " without prejudice," and she would be, she 
 had said to herself. 
 
 " What would you have me be ? " The voice is so low 
 he can hardly hear it. 
 
 " Yourself. Your own sweet, true, noble self. To 
 me and to the world what you are alone with your own 
 mind. The very gates of Hell could not prevail against 
 the inborn purity and refinement of your nature. Do 
 not wear this mask longer. Drop it before its use 
 becomes natural." 
 
 u Is it not too late, Billy, for me to be anything but 
 what in times past you have wished me to be ? Is it 
 not too late now to make the change from that which 
 the years have made natural ? You mistake, I fear, my 
 powers of resistance to such influences and it is too 
 late to retrace our steps." Her words are gentle, long- 
 ing, sad. They chill him to the heart. 
 
 " No, Mabelle, your heart tells you not. You have 
 passed through fire and been refined; through tempta- 
 tion and been made strong ; through sin and been sanc- 
 tified. You have learned in a brief month of innocent 
 childhood that knowledge of man's vileness and brutal- 
 ity which comes gradually and by degrees through years 
 pf experience to all women. Much knowledge is much
 
 84 IT 18 THE LAW. 
 
 sorrow, but that very sorrow has wrought you a crown, 
 which you wear unconsciously, that commands the re- 
 spect and admiration of the world. Frank calls you 
 Proserpine, and you are the queen of rest for the 
 weary and troubled soul." 
 
 She smiles at him not in return for his compliment, 
 but at the new man. 
 
 " Ah ! Billy, you forgot that 
 
 ' Knowledge is but sorrow's spy, 
 It is not safe to know,' 
 
 when you loaded down my young soul with a burden 
 which other women carry piece by piece in their strength 
 and age." 
 
 " That is true," he replies, earnestly, " of all things as 
 well as this ; but you have no fear of knowledge, no 
 dread of the sorrow that comes from the truth. 
 
 ' From ignorance our comfort flows : 
 The only wretched are the wise.' 
 
 But which do you choose, Mabelle ? You are brave 
 and true. You would not exchange the wretchedness 
 of wisdom or the sorrow of knowledge for the bliss of 
 ignorance except in this one thing. Because as a 
 child you ate of the tree of knowledge of Evil, and 
 sorrow has come, you need not treat it differently from 
 other knowledge. The sorrow may be greater, keener ; 
 but not different in kind, only in degree." 
 
 " I have touched pitch, Billy," she says, gently. 
 
 He knows her too well to misunderstand. 
 
 " But you have not been defiled," he replies, earnestly. 
 " When, two years ago, a chance word brought me to a 
 realizing sense of my insanity you know that for two
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 85 
 
 years past I have never said a word in your- presence, 
 or told you a story, or made a suggestion that would not 
 be proper anywhere, at any time, to the primmest of 
 prudes my only comfort was that I had failed abso- 
 lutely." 
 
 " I did not know I did not dream that you had 
 changed. I have been much happier the past two years. 
 But I thought the reason why you kept more know- 
 ledge from me was because there was nothing new that 
 was vile to tell me." 
 
 The words are not meant as a reproach ; but they are 
 a reproach the bitterness of which will last him for 
 many a day. 
 
 " Can you not forgive me for what I have made you 
 suffer ? " he asks, when he can command himself. 
 
 " No, Billy, I cannot." The answer is soft and low 
 and kind ; but honest. 
 
 " Then you have suffered keenly, Mabelle ? " 
 
 " Torture an hundred times. Torture at each time 
 and when I recalled any one. Agony when I thought 
 what it meant." 
 
 " Met ' agona ttttphanos, " he murmurs to himself. 
 " My poor child, your crown has come as all crowns 
 must come ; yet I would have you a simple innocent 
 child if we could live our lives over." 
 
 " But we cannot, Bilty ; we must take up the thread 
 of life and reel it off. We cannot rewind it. It may 
 be that it has all been for the best. What you have 
 said is true. I was thinking last night that I would 
 like to be a maiden, knowing nothing of men except that 
 they were ; nothing of lovers except that somewhere in 
 the world there was one riding to me ; love and marriage 
 and life a heap of shining clouds around me, into which
 
 86 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 I could not see ; my heart filled with vague, unformed, 
 and unforming delight at what I could not even im- 
 agine. Then the face and figure of a man grew from 
 the mists and took form and shape. It was Sorrow's 
 spy. His face was that of the Shining One, and his 
 gentle eyes, filled with love, seemed to read down into 
 my very soul. In the sighing of the wind, I seemed 
 to hear him say : ' I am Truth, my beloved. Those 
 that find me have peace and rest for evermore. Thou 
 hast sought me on the hills of Lebanon, and in the 
 valleys that lie beyond the river ; but now I am come 
 to thee and my heart is thine. Here on my breast shalt 
 thou lie through life, and through Sheol will I carry 
 thee to the city that is built upon the everlasting hills.' 
 Then he opened his arms, and they closed upon me, 
 and a great light came that seemed around and about 
 and on every side." 
 
 Her voice died away until it was barely audible. 
 
 Had " one of the boys " of the William Smith Asso- 
 ciation of the Ninth Ward casually opened the door, 
 he would have closed it softly. He would not have 
 recognized the " boss " in the man standing beside 
 that chair, looking down at the drooping head bowed 
 upon the soft cushion. 
 
 Nor did she, as she looked into the eyes of the man 
 kneeling beside her and holding both her hands in 
 his. 
 
 " And in your waking dreams, Mabelle, when Ignor- 
 ance with its happiness, and Knowledge with its sorrow, 
 were offered to chose from, you chose Sorrow rather 
 than Happiness." 
 
 "Yes, Billy. I knew then why He was called 
 the ' Man of Sorrows.' I knew then that God was
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 87 
 
 Truth, and Truth was Love, and Love was Knowledge, 
 and Knowledge was Sorrow. In choosing Sorrow, I 
 chose Him. My bridegroom came, Billy, and he was 
 the Comforter the spirit of Love, the Truth." 
 
 He kisses her fingers with a reverence that makes 
 her shy. It takes an effort on her part to look him in 
 the face, and she sees something there that brings a 
 soft color to her cheek something she has never seen 
 before in the six years of their married life. It fills 
 her with a gentle confusion, for if adoration was ever 
 shown on the face of man it is on his. 
 
 " But, Billy, this is not what we are here for. Let us 
 come down from the clouds of philosophy and poetry, 
 which you dislike so much " 
 
 " That all depends, I discovered some time ago, 
 Mabelle, upon who takes me there." 
 
 " Don't compliment me, Billy. The next thing will 
 be "she stops and blushes. 
 
 "What? "he asks. 
 
 " Love-making, and that would be ridiculous." 
 
 It doesn't seem the least bit ridiculous to him, and 
 the pain is sharp. 
 
 " Why should it be ridiculous ? " 
 
 "I am not thin enough nor old enough, for the love 
 I hope will sometime fill your heart, Billy, for the 
 beauty that is of the intellect ; and too thin, I am glad 
 to know, for any other love for such love as pleases 
 you now. " 
 
 It is his turn to crimson. He can make no reply. 
 
 " If I put off my journey to Chicago, what do you 
 wish me to do ? What shall you do about your yachting 
 cruise ? " 
 
 " Give it up. Will you make a sacrifice which I have
 
 88 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 no right to ask ? Will you remain with me this summer, 
 go where I go, stay where I stay, and stick ' closer than 
 a brother'? I will, of course, conform in all things as 
 closely to your wishes and preferences as possible. You 
 can trust me in that. " 
 
 It is a sudden resolution that forms in his mind. He 
 is quick-brained, and his staying powers are proverbial 
 among the sachems. 
 
 " Have you a strong reason for this ? " 
 
 " Yes. And more than one." 
 
 "Then I will. But you must not ask me " her cheeks 
 crimson with shame. There is the sensation of a dozen 
 needles pricking her cheeks. Her downcast eyes see 
 nothing. Her words fail. But he understands. 
 
 There is silence for a minute. Then a drop falls 
 upon her hand. As she looks up, her husband turns 
 his back and walks across the- room. When he comes 
 back, his face is once more under command. 
 
 She has her answer and it fully satisfies her. 
 
 "Does Jane know you have a second wife?" she 
 asks presently. 
 
 " Yes, but not when we were married or that you are 
 my niece. It is not necessary to enlighten her, unless 
 you desire it particularly." 
 
 " Do you want me to call on her ? " 
 
 " With me, yes ; alone, no. If she calls on you and 
 it is her place to do so receive her or not, as you like," 
 
 " Will you see Mrs Lyons about that flat to day ? " 
 
 " This afternoon, after luncheon. Will you begin to- 
 day your partnership by coming with me? I will need 
 you." 
 
 She lays her hand in his, and wonders why it trem- 
 bles so. He holds hers firmly.
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 89 
 
 " This partnership continues " 
 
 " Until mutually dissolved, or until one is dissatisfied 
 and asks for an accounting. Is that the legal way of 
 putting it?" 
 
 " Yes. Will you explain this snarl to Gypsy? " 
 
 " Is it necessary for her to know ? " 
 
 " She will find it out. She might as well understand 
 the exact bald facts. She will be sure to find them out. 
 The truth will do her no harm. It is the law."
 
 90 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Where there is no counsel, purposes are disappointed. 
 
 Prov. xv. 22. 
 
 THERE are of course abnormal men and women phy- 
 sical " freaks " like the bearded woman and the nursing 
 man, and moral " freaks " like the truly good man and 
 the perfectly pure woman but the vast majority are 
 made upon one loom and from the same materials. The 
 weft is Evil and the warp is Righteousness. Whoever 
 turns his eyes inward upon himself finds what St. Paul 
 found, a law in his members warring against the law of 
 his mind, so that when he would do good, evil is present 
 with him, and when he would do evil, good stands be- 
 side it and closely joined. 
 
 Since the day when Truth took a bath and had her 
 clothing stolen, the world lias been ashamed of her in 
 the daytime. At night she may come forth from the 
 well in which she took refuge, and in the darkness the 
 individual will listen to her voice and pay her reverential 
 worship. But he who bows down before her alone at 
 midnight will run like a hare if there is a possibility that 
 some other worshipper may recognize him, and he will be 
 the first to cast a stone at her if she but lifts her head 
 above the kerb after sunrise. 
 
 At night, alone with Truth, every man will admit that 
 there is none righteous, no, not one ; and if he has wisdom 
 he will add, and none evil, no, not one. But in the day- 
 time he stands in the mark'^-ylace and proclaims that
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 91 
 
 the world is divided into the good and the bad ; into sheep 
 and goats, and that there is a great gulf between 
 them. He calls down blessings upon the teachers who 
 instruct the young that the good are always good and 
 the evil always evil; anathema upon those who preach 
 concord between Christ and Belial. 
 
 The warp and woof of Evil and Righteousness are so 
 closely woven in all except moral freaks for moral 
 museums, that one cannot tell from one moment to the 
 other whether he will be swayed^ by the law of his 
 members or the law of his mind. So evenly are the two 
 constantly working, so perfect the adjustment and com- 
 pensation, that the generous man will be a thief, the 
 prudent a traitor, the sweet-tempered unjust. The wife 
 alone knows how hard and cruel the model husband may 
 be to his children ; the children, how mean and despic- 
 able the model father may be to his wife. And there is 
 no persistence and continuance in any one course. The 
 thread is always broken somewhere, and sometimes broken 
 often. The generous man will be mean, the prudent rash, 
 the sweet-tempered sour. And when the break in the 
 thread comes, none can be so mean as he who is naturally 
 generous ; none so rash as he who is ordinarily prudent ;. 
 none so virtuous as he who has been long evil ; none so 
 vile as he who has lived long in righteousness. 
 
 The man whose evil ways are not generally known is 
 called good. The man whose good ways are not known 
 (and whose evil ways are) is called bad. There is no 
 other test applied except that of publicity, and the words 
 have no other meaning. The evil ways are alike of the 
 bad and the good ; the righteous ways are alike of the 
 good and bad. 
 
 Whether William Smith was a " good " man or a "bad"
 
 92 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 man does not matter. The answer would have depended 
 as it does in every case, whether asked of a saint in 
 crape or a devil on two sticks upon the degree of inti- 
 macy with his personal affairs enjoyed by the one who 
 made it. The truly wise man who had never before 
 heard of him would have promptly answered " both," 
 and he alone would have been right. 
 
 That William Smith was a natural and ordinary man, 
 without one strong characteristic differentiating him from 
 any other man, is a very important matter. A man 
 always acts in precisely the same way under the same 
 circumstances ; but the same circumstances never happen 
 twice in any one man's life. They may seem to, but 
 there is always a shade of difference if not in them, in 
 the man himself. Two men will never act in the same 
 way under the same circumstances, because no two men 
 are alike, and the same circumstance combined with them 
 will produce different effects ; but if they are human men 
 and not freaks they will act in accordance with which- 
 ever law happens to be uppermost at the time the law 
 of the members or the law of the mind. If one kicks 
 the bootblack and gives the newsboy a nickel, the prob- 
 abilities are that the other will give the former the 
 nickel and the latter the kick. 
 
 What the moral " freak," who is truly good or truly 
 evil all the days of his life, may do or leave undone is not 
 worth recording. His conduct has no value to Immunity. 
 It can have no proper or legitimate interest for the 
 healthy mind. It is the action of a moral monstrosity 
 not common enough to have any influence upon or to be 
 a factor in society from which no useful lesson may be 
 drawn. Morbid curiosity alone seeks to pry into the 
 private life of the bearded woman and the man with
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 93 
 
 udders ; and morbid curiosity alone pries into the action 
 of such moral phenomena as " good " men or " pure " 
 women. Unhealthy minds alone are interested in what 
 may be discovered. 
 
 It is because no one not even Smith himself could 
 actually foretell what he would do under given circum- 
 stances; because his action would depend entirely upon 
 the state of mind, and that again upon some unknown 
 and unobservable trifle, that any interest attaches to 
 what he did. And this uncertainty as to whether 
 any human action will be wise or unwise, proper or 
 improper, evil or righteous, is the only reason why legit- 
 imate interest may be taken in it. 
 
 If the wise were always wise, the chaste always 
 chaste, the honest always honest, there would be no 
 more healthy curiosity about their action than there is 
 in the motion of a horse in a cider press, or the walking 
 beam of a steamer ; and no more interest in reading 
 about them than there is in reading about lines and 
 angles in geometry. 
 
 Smith had had no intention of telling Mabelle any- 
 thing. A chance tone of voice had brought him under 
 the law of the mind, and he had told the whole truth. 
 For years the thread of indulgence in one evil thing 
 had run through his life, and in a moment it had broken 
 by a sudden and accidental strain. Whether the other 
 end would ever be found again was a question of the 
 dim and distant future. For the present, in its place 
 he held by pure accident the next thread of Righteous- 
 ness. His course of action had been mapped out so far 
 as he could foresee, his whole treatment of the situation 
 had been determined, by a drooping eyelid and a faint 
 flush.
 
 94 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 For years he had surrendered himself entirely to the 
 law of his members, and he had paid little or no at- 
 tention to any other. If he had obeyed the other law, 
 the obedience had been unconscious. For half an hour 
 or more he had been incomplete, voluntary, and will- 
 ing subjection to the law of his mind, and it seemed 
 as if a new life had come to him. It was certainly a 
 refreshing change. 
 
 The whole morning had been spent in the explana- 
 tion, and in rearranging their plans for the summer. 
 He had explained exactly what he desired doing ; and 
 although she could see no reason for what he proposed, 
 and he volunteered none, she had acquiesced. 
 
 Gypsy, whose baptismal name had been an abhorred 
 Mary Ann, had knocked twice without receiving at- 
 tention, and was on her dignity when the luncheon bell, 
 rung for the second time, brought them to the dining- 
 room. 
 
 " Where did you go ? " Mabelle asks. 
 
 " To the park." 
 
 " Did you not take too long a walk? " 
 
 " For Chump ? You need not feel worried on his 
 account. I carried him part of the way." 
 
 Mabelle detests the dog, and would be glad to see it 
 in a catcher's wagon. She takes no notice of the 
 scratch. 
 
 " Did you meet anyone you knew ? " 
 
 " There's no one in town that I am interested in. 
 
 Mabelle looks at Smith. The same thought has 
 come to both perhaps because for the first time in 
 their lives they are thoroughly en rapport. The half 
 smile on his lip is bass to the treble of dancing mischief 
 in her eyes.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 95 
 
 " May I ' paralyze ' her ? " she asks, sotto voce. 
 
 " If you can, " he replies, doubtfully. 
 
 " Your sister-in-law is in town. Billy brought her 
 last night from Watertown. Would you not like to 
 meet her, Gypsy ? " 
 
 " Did I ever have any other brother except you, 
 Billy ? A little more salad, please, Mabelle. " 
 
 "None that lived." 
 
 " Then she is your wife. I suppose, Belle, I shall 
 have to do the duty act and call, if you insist. Needs 
 must when you or Billy drives." 
 
 Smith laughs at Mabelle's complete discomfiture. 
 
 " Have you no curiosity on the subject ? Is it so com- 
 mon for a man to have two legal wives ? " 
 
 "No, but divorces are common enough. Married 
 men are divorced and remarried every day. Haven't 
 you taken the trouble to get a divorce from Mabelle ? " 
 
 " No,'' he replies, very shortly. 
 
 " Have you turned Mormon, then ? I don't know 
 what your views are, Mabelle ; but, in your place, I 
 think I should object to such conduct. She cannot be 
 perfectly proper to marry you, Billy, without a divorce 
 from Mabelle, and I am sure I shall not like her." 
 
 " Billy married her twelve years ago, and lost her 
 soon after," Mabelle explains. "After searching for 
 her for five years, without finding her, he was free to 
 marry again ; but he procured a divorce in another 
 state on the ground of desertion, before he married me. 
 He found her yesterday. The law of this state does 
 not recognize the divorce from her, and makes both 
 marriages legal and binding, but I can have our mar- 
 /iage brought to an end at any date, by petitioning a
 
 96 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 court.* We remain lawful husband and wife until I 
 do." 
 
 " Don't do it, Mabelle, please don't ! " She is aroused 
 and interested at last. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Smith looks down at his plate and silently asks him- 
 self the question. He knows that his fate is in her 
 hands, that his divorce would have no weight with a 
 first wife living, and that any court would grant her 
 petition instantly and without question. If his one first 
 wife had been a dozen he would willingly have given 
 them all in exchange for six months' delay in which 
 to make atonement for the six years. 
 
 "Can you ask such a question, Mabelle ? Now we are 
 sisters-in-law, and then you would be my niece and I 
 would be your aunt Mary Ann ! " 
 
 The condensed, nay, solid horror with which she says 
 it is too much for both. 
 
 " I do not see what you are laughing at." 
 
 " I am sure we beg your pardon," said Smith. " My 
 
 * The appearance of the first wife on the scene changes the situation 
 materially. Now the innocent third party is entitled to relief, if she 
 desires it, and the court is bound at her application to terminate the 
 second marriage contract upon a given date. But it is not to the in- 
 terest of the second wife to have the second contract cancelled. She 
 loses all dower rights and support, not to mention the social disabilities 
 flowing from a cancellation of the marriage, which is misunderstood 
 by every one except lawyers. If she could get a divorce, she would be 
 justified iu the eyes of the world. A marriage that has been cancelled 
 is considered socially as a reproach, and the relations under it as little 
 different from adulterous ; while a marriage ended by divorce " must 
 have been proper " while it lasted. The second wife is denied the divorce, 
 and naturally shrinks from sacrificing her pecuniary interests and social 
 position by asking for a dissolution of a perfectly lawful and reputable 
 marriage. Neither of the other two may ask it.
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 97 
 
 dear Mabelle, before you proceed to extreme measures, 
 I trust that you will carefully consider the feelings of 
 my sister." 
 
 " You may plead for yourself, William," Gypsy re- 
 plies, thoroughly angry. " You will need all your 
 words, let me tell you, without wasting any for me. I 
 am not blind, nor a fool. For six months past you have 
 been head over heels in love with Mabelle ; and no over- 
 grown schoolboy ever made such a ninny of himself as 
 you have, trying to hide it. Every book Mabelle said 
 she liked you have sneaked out of the library and 
 carried off to read. You spent the whole evening be- 
 fore you went away pretending to read a novel, and 
 never turned a page, just watching her ; and you carried 
 off the book she was reading; when I know you hate 
 poetry. She will be a fool. if she don't get her freedom 
 and marry Dick Jones, or some one near her own age. 
 You will be worse off than I if she does, and you know 
 it." 
 
 Smith had had a fairly wide experience with political 
 conventions, but this was the worst hornet's nest he had 
 ever stirred up. He watches his wife's face with keen 
 anxiety, but it does not change, and a faint smile comes 
 to his lips. 
 
 " Thank you, Mary Ann, for your candor. It is a 
 virtue - sometimes. When it is not, it is a nuisance." 
 
 He might have said more if the return of the waitress 
 to the room had not put a sudden end to confidential 
 conversation. 
 
 " Gypsy, I promised yesterday to make you a present 
 of that garnet set you admired so much. I was just 
 thinking that it will match perfectly the dress Mrs. Tabor 
 is to send home this afternoon, and the two should go 
 
 7
 
 98 . IT IS THE LA IF. 
 
 together. Billy and I are going out to call on Mrs. Lyons, 
 and if you will not mind going down for it I would like 
 to have you wear both at dinner to-night, for Billy to 
 see them." 
 
 "Mabelle, you are an angel ! " 
 
 Gypsy has one weak point jewels and dress. 
 
 " I am an artist, dear ; and the dress needs just that 
 touch to make it perfect. Something has always been 
 lacking, and what it was came by inspiration. You 
 cannot imagine, Billy, the thought I have put upon it. I 
 made six sketches in color before I got the idea to suit 
 me. I spent two days hunting the material in the exact 
 shade, and I made over a dozen drawings to scale before 
 I trusted Mrs. Tabor with the stuff. If it is not a suc- 
 cess I shall be grievously disappointed. You must ad- 
 mire it anyway." 
 
 " As it will not be on a spike or a beanpole, I will 
 have no difficulty in doing so. You hold Heine's threat 
 over me, I suppose : 
 
 ' But if you fail ray dress to praise, 
 I'll be divorced on the morrow.' " 
 
 Certainly her husband is developing an entirely new 
 phase of character. She blushes and smiles, remember- 
 ing her words. 
 
 " That would merely exchange an indulgent husband 
 for a crabbed uncle and guardian. You are easier to 
 manage as you are. I shall punish you in some worse 
 way." 
 
 "What way? How?'' 
 
 " I will tell you in advance. Enlarge every button- 
 hole in your shirts so that the studs will come out by 
 the. time you get down-town. Your collar will saw your
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 99 
 
 neck all day, for no man ever had sense enough to buy 
 a new shirt. He looks for what are not made larger 
 collar buttons." 
 
 " And could you do anything so diabolical as that ? 
 It is the thought of a fiend a punishment for a long 
 life of wickedness not for one sin of omission." 
 
 " Yes, and worse. But go, change your shirt arid put 
 on another coat if we are to call on Mrs. Lyons. Come 
 up to my room, Gypsy." 
 
 Everything is satisfactorily arranged with Mrs. Lyons 
 in a very few minutes, including possession the next 
 day. When they leave, Mabelle turns to him : 
 
 " It is only three o'clock. Let us call on Jane. She 
 will want to buy an outfit, and she won't know where to 
 go. Did you leave her enough money ? " 
 
 " I never thought I didn't leave her any ; and I 
 haven't over fifty or sixty dollars with me." 
 
 " So very like a man," she said ; " I thought you might 
 be temporarily embarrassed ; so I put up $300 in one 
 roll and $150 in another. Give one to Jane and the 
 other to Fanny. They will need as much more to-mor- 
 row. They must not disgrace you. We can have dresses 
 sent to the hotel this afternoon for them to wear at the 
 dinner-table to-night." 
 
 When Mrs Smith-Greene enters the long, dark parlor 
 of the Grand Union to receive Mr. and Mrs. Smith, it is 
 with a rapidly beating heart. Ordinarily she is very 
 phlegmatic. It takes a good deal to move her. But now 
 she is ill at ease and lacking in confidence. She expects 
 a scene with a woman like herself and more, a woman 
 of the world, whom she fears because she is an unknown 
 creature. 
 
 A slender, graceful girl comes forward with out-
 
 100 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 stretched hand and sweet half-hesitating manner that 
 is irresistibly winning. The voice is sympathetic and 
 sincere. 
 
 " How tired you must be this warm day, cooped up 
 here ! Will not you and your sister come shopping with 
 me ? You came away so hastily that you must have 
 forgotten lots of things. I know the best places and just 
 where to get whatever you want. It is warm out, but it 
 will rest you if you will come." 
 
 " It is aVf ill warm here, and I am dying for a breath 
 of air. Are you " She hesitates. 
 
 " Yes, I am Mrs. Smith II. Doesn't it sound odd ? 
 One might as well be in Utah. And this is Fanny ?" 
 
 She turns to Mrs. Robinson, who has shaken hands 
 with Smith. " You and I must be the best of friends. 
 Frank Brooks told me last summer of his first and only 
 flirtation but he did riot tell me that Billy was with 
 him." The latter sentence is to Jane. It is not the words 
 but the manner that puts both the women at their ease. 
 Mrs. Smith-Greene's apprehensions vanish. 
 
 She has nothing to fear from this slip of a girl. She 
 can put her in her proper place, she thinks, at any 
 time. There she blundered. 
 
 " That was not right. He should have warned you. 
 I am very sorry that he did not." 
 
 "You forget, dear, that friends seldom tell wives of 
 their husbands' early love affairs ; and Billy has had so 
 many he has told me of himself that one more or less 
 that he may have forgotten could not matter." 
 
 The sweet half-laugh robbed the words of any 
 particular sting, but Jane is quick to see and to resent 
 that it is no unformed girl who is talking to her. 
 
 "Put on your bonnet, Jane," Smith says, "and let 
 us go. I know to my sorrow what shopping means."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 101 
 
 The elevated and an Eighteenth street car carry 
 them to Arnold's. Fanny has taken instantly to Mabelle, 
 and the two keep together, leaving Jane to Smith, 
 that he may explain to her about the flat. 
 
 The question is dress and the two women discuss it, 
 Fanny frankly telling what they have. 
 
 " You will only need two dresses to-day, one for 
 dinner and one for the street. Others you can get at 
 any time." 
 
 " Yours is a street dress," Fanny says, a little wist- 
 fully. " Could one like that be bought ready-made ? " 
 
 " Why ? do you like it ? " 
 
 " It is lovely. It makes you look like a picture." 
 
 Mabelle laughs. " I design all my own dresses, and 
 I am proud of some of them. This only cost $45 for 
 labor and material. But it cost many hours of hard 
 work with pencil and brush before it was completed." 
 
 She might truthfully have added that hundreds of 
 women would gladly have paid her $100 for similar 
 " work" on one for themselves. 
 
 " Now I know why it looks so lovely. It was made 
 for you alone. It would lose its charm on any one 
 else." 
 
 "That seems to me the secret of a perfect dress. It 
 must be a part of the individuality of the wearer just 
 the same as her hair ; it must suggest the face, even, if 
 the latter should be averted. Such dresses can never 
 be bought. You will see some to-day worth $300 or 
 more ; but not one in which I would look so well as in 
 this." 
 
 " But would you not like to have a very costly dress ? 
 I should, I think, even if I did not look so well in it as 
 in a cheaper."
 
 102 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 This is truth. Mabelle likes her for it, and nods 
 her approbation not of the sentiment, but of the 
 honesty it shows. 
 
 " Wait till you see the walking dress I have been 
 planning for you ever since we left Thirty-Fourth 
 Street station. It's to be in two shades ; the body the 
 the color of your eyes, the trimming that of your hair. 
 It is to be No, wait till you see it ! Then tell me you 
 prefer one that costs more, if you can." 
 
 " Will you design one for me alone ? One that will 
 be all mine ? " 
 
 Mabelle understands the full significance of the 
 simple words the ungratified longing of a life that they 
 reveal. 
 
 " Not one, but many, I hope, Fanny, if you are satis- 
 fied with your dressmaker. Let us first see what I can 
 do. You have a perfect form, and that ought to inspire 
 me. Few women have, you know ; and the chief 
 problem in designing is to remedy the defects by sug- 
 gesting what is not." 
 
 " Jane is expert with her needle, and a fairly good 
 dressmaker. She has always made my dresses ; but of 
 course they were from fashion plates." 
 
 " You and your sister have always lived together, 
 have you not ? " 
 
 " Yes, with the exception of the year when I first 
 took charge of the Tipton school. I was left all alone 
 when she went to Indiana." 
 
 " How old were you then ? " 
 
 " Seventeen. Mother and father died within a few 
 months of one another father in September and mother 
 in November, 1878. I got the school the next March. 
 Aunt Jane was living in Sabine, Indiana, and she sent
 
 iriS THE LAW. 103 
 
 for Jane. She went there in February and stayed till 
 December, nursing aunt. She was what is called 
 4 very near,' and Jane quarrelled with her and came 
 back to Tipton. I was very glad to get her back, and 
 since then we have always lived together or within a 
 stone's-throw. We quarrel sometimes, but it's only for 
 an hour. We have both bad tempers, but we love one 
 another." 
 
 Mabelle has hardly been listening to the last sentence. 
 There is a strange light in her eye, and an odd little 
 smile on her lips as ske looks at Smith and Jane. Her 
 lips compress, she straightens up, and the keen observer 
 would have known that she had formed a sudden reso- 
 lution which was of more than ordinary importance. 
 It was several minutes before she was herself again and 
 once more talking freely. 
 
 In the bobtail Smith makes an opportunity to say : 
 "Jane wants a walking dress as nearly like yours as 
 possible. Can she get one under two hundred ? '" 
 
 The slight gesture of dissent he understands. It is 
 not a question of price, but of fitness. Her dress sug- 
 gests shape ; Jane's should hide it. 
 
 " What shall I do ? " he asks, in an undertone. 
 
 *' Tell her, when she is selecting one, that mine cost 
 only -$45, and advise her to buy one that costs $75," she 
 replies sagely. 
 
 He does, and smiles to himself at the effect 
 
 When, at 8 p. m., the two women go to the dining- 
 room arrayed in their new duds,* Jane studies her sister 
 carefully. 
 
 * Scotch, " duddies;" English, "dudes;" American, "duds." 
 
 " She coost her duddies to the wark, 
 And linket at it in her sark." 
 
 Burn*.
 
 104 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 " I don't understand it, Fan. My dress cost three 
 times what yours did, and doesn't look half so well. I 
 believe that forewoman swindled me, and I'll let her 
 know it." 
 
 " Mabelle chose mine." 
 
 Fanny understands that her sister's dress is too heavily 
 ornamented, for she has learned her first lesson of art 
 in dress from Mabelle's bright comments on those they 
 have seen. 
 
 " Yes. They knew her and didn't dare cheat her. I 
 was a stranger and they took me in." Evidently she had 
 not enjoyed her shopping. 
 
 Fanny had. It had been the pleasantest two hours 
 she could remember. She is wiser than her sister, and 
 is silent. 
 
 Later in the evening Smith, Mabelle, and Gypsy are 
 sitting in the Casino summer garden, listening to the 
 concert. 
 
 " What do you think of them ? " he asks. 
 
 It is the first allusion he has made to the afternoon's 
 experience. Gypsy is talking to an acquaintance, 
 absorbed in a story. 
 
 " I shall like Fanny. She is as honest as the sun." 
 
 " And Jane ? " 
 
 " She is fully twenty pounds too heavy. She should 
 lace and train down." 
 
 " Her dresses were wonderful ; her bonnets marvellous. Few women 
 could boast such dudes." 
 
 Thackeray. 
 
 " Why should you say that, Samanthy ? My duds are as good as 
 hers, if I haven't had a new stitch to my back in over two years." 
 
 Cobb. 
 
 "DUDE; the personification of clothing clothes and nothing else." 
 
 The Dictionary (next edition).
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 105 
 
 " Bother her flesh ! You know that's not what I 
 mean." 
 
 " She is a very fine-looking woman. I think you 
 showed good taste." 
 
 He is too wise to press her further, but he is discon- 
 tented. 
 
 " T\vo wives are one too many," he says, after a while. 
 
 Mabelle laughs softly. She knows that the remark 
 has no reference to her. 
 
 " For either he will hate the one and love the other," 
 she says it half to herself. " It is the natural timidity 
 at a new and strange thing, Billy. You will get ac- 
 customed to it in time. Think how many of your 
 friends have two or more wives. Besides, it is better 
 than the other." 
 
 " That reproach has not been needed since you left 
 school two years ago ; but it is just, I suppose," lie re- 
 plies absently. There is not the faintest attempt at ex- 
 cuse or apology. 
 
 She looks at him in astonishment and colors. This 
 then was the reason for the change in conduct to which 
 he had alluded in their morning conversation. There 
 was nothing to tell her. The compliment is the greatest 
 she had ever received, fourfold greater for its utter un- 
 consciousness, and she asks involuntarily, " Is that 
 true?" 
 
 " The objective order of the phenomena is in accord- 
 ance with the subjective order of thought, if that's what 
 you mean. I suppose that it has been from lack of op- 
 portunity or strong enough temptation. I don't know 
 any other reason. The fact just occurred to me, so it's 
 not because I am become pious." 
 
 If he doesn't know tin; reason, she does. She is just
 
 106 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 beginning to learn a new phase of her husband's charac- 
 ter. It makes her proud and humble. 
 
 " Don't be cynical. If I lay aside my mask, you 
 must do the same." 
 
 " Do you believe there is in me one good thing? " 
 
 " Many. But in this respect I did not until this 
 morning. Now my eyes are opening. Don't be 
 ashamed, Billy, of letting me see something of the 
 other side. Give me pleasure when you can." 
 
 He blushes like a school-boy, and is about to reply 
 without thought of what he is saying, when Gypsy 
 joins them, loaded to the teeth. 
 
 " Mabelle, Nellie Brown was married last week to 
 that man she has been corresponding with, and when 
 her father found it out he had him arrested and he is in 
 prison now. Mamie says that Nellie is to be sent to the 
 convent, and that her uncle says he will have her hus- 
 band sent to prison for five years, for marrying her." 
 
 Gypsy is not strong with her pronouns but she is 
 understood. 
 
 " Why, how can that be ? Nellie is eighteen or nine- 
 teen." 
 
 " No, only sixteen. Her birthday is on the Fourth. 
 Everyone thought she was eighteen." 
 
 " Do you know the date they were married? " Smith 
 asks. 
 
 " Yes, it was the third. 
 
 " Then it is all right. Her father will get into trouble 
 and have to pay enough damages to support them for 
 two or three years. False arrest is no joke, and he pro- 
 bably swore she was under sixteen and that is per- 
 jury." 
 
 " Why, how is that ? Sixteen is the age up to which a
 
 IT IS THE LA jr. 107 
 
 parent or guardian has property rights in a daughter or 
 ward, and she was not sixteen by a day," 
 
 " That's the law, Mabelle, but it is also the law that 
 a man or woman is of age the day before the birthday. 
 She was full sixteen years old the last second of the last 
 day of her sixteenth year which ends at midnight. Now 
 the law takes no account of fractions of a day, so that she 
 was sixteen at any hour on the 3d, the last legal day of 
 her sixteenth year, and it was not grand larceny to steal 
 her on and after that date. It would have been if the 
 marriage had been the day before. Her father's remedy 
 is a civil action for damages for loss of service for the 
 five years between then and the time she comes of age. 
 She ceased to be his private and personal property, 
 July 3." 
 
 " She's of age at eighteen," Gypsy says. 
 
 " Who told you so ? She's of age at twenty-one, and 
 not an hour before. That superstition about a girl 
 being of age at eighteen is one of the most singular I 
 ever met. I never could find out its origin." The latter 
 remark is to Mabelle. 
 
 " Then Mr. Brown cannot have the marriage dis- 
 solved?" 
 
 " No marriage can be dissolved annulled is the right 
 word, Sis where the girl is over fourteen,* and only 
 in a very few cases can the courts interfere where she is 
 over twelve.f The age of legal marriage is twelve for 
 the girl and fourteen for the boy. But if a girl under 
 sixteen marries without her parent's consent, the hus- 
 band may be sent to the state prison for grand larceny, 
 
 1744 Code of Civil Procedure, since changed to sixteen. 
 For the three cases see note, ante.
 
 108 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 having stolen the parent's property the daughter.* 
 After that age he does not own her, but only has a five 
 years' interest in her, the same as a widow has in her 
 husband's real estate. Those proceedings do not affect 
 the marriage, which holds good in all cases. The man 
 is not punished for marrying the girl, but for stealing the 
 father's spoons or watch or daughter or other property. 
 The governor usually pardons him after a year, and then 
 the two go to housekeeping. Sometimes he gets five 
 years." f 
 
 " It's simply abominable ! And I can't be married 
 before I am sixteen, except with your consent, without 
 having my husband sent to prison for stealing your 
 property ? I am your property until then, am I ? I 
 have a good mind to get married before the year is 
 out." 
 
 " Don't, Gypsy. You would hit your head against a 
 stone-wall. It is the law." 
 
 * 282 Criminal Code. 
 
 t But if the girl is over sixteen the marriage cannot be voided, and 
 she must remain his wife. In 1886, the marriage could not be voided 
 if the girl was 14, but the law has since been changed.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 109 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 For the good man is not at home, 
 
 He is gone a long journey : 
 
 He hath taken a bag of money with him. 
 
 Prov. vii. 19. 
 
 Two weeks later Mrs. Smith-Greene and her sister 
 Fanny are sitting on the cool verandah of a small cot- 
 tage at Long Branch. The breeze from the ocean is a 
 delight to Fanny, and she leans back in the rocker, 
 watching the vessels passing, in delicious content. Mrs. 
 Smith-Greene has laid down her novel. She cannot get 
 interested in it, although the fault is not in the book. 
 Suddenly she says : 
 
 " I will not stand it. I am an injured woman. I will 
 not be bought off in this way." 
 
 " I don't understand you," Fanny says, bringing her 
 eyes reluctantly from the blue waves and white scurry- 
 ing clouds to rest on her sister's face. Its expression 
 does not improve it. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you think William is 
 treating me right ? " 
 
 " I don't know, of course ; but it seems to me that 
 he is everything kind and gentle and good." 
 
 " Am I his wife, or am 1 not ? " 
 
 " You are his wife, Jane, or we should not be here. 
 What is the matter?" 
 
 " It is just this, that I won't be neglected in this 
 manner."
 
 110 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 " He has given you the most lovely home I ever saw 
 in my life, Jenny ; a little paradise. And he has hired 
 this house for us for the summer. I do not under- 
 stand " 
 
 " Yes, he has put me, his lawful wife, on the third 
 flat of an apartment house, while he lives with that 
 woman in a whole house by himself. He has run me 
 down here alone, where I know nobody, that he may go 
 off with her to Saratoga or Newport. He allows me 
 $150 per month and spends ten times that on himself 
 and her. I won't stand it. It is disgraceful. No man 
 has a right to treat his wife like that." 
 
 " But she is his lawful wife, Jenny." 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk that 
 way to me, your sister. Was he not married to me 
 before she was married to. him ? Am I not the lawful 
 wife ? This is not Utah. It is nonsense to say a man 
 may have two wives. He has one wife. You can call 
 the other what you please. If she was not a brazen 
 baggage she would never have lived with him a day 
 after he found me. She would have been glad to crawl 
 to some place where no one knew her and hide her 
 shame from the world. Instead of doing that, as any 
 decent woman would, she coaxes him and wheedles him 
 into staying with her, and as she is his latest, and young 
 and tender, she keeps him, when his place is here, by 
 me here, by me, do you understand ? He had no 
 right to leave me for an hour, and he has never 
 spoken to me alone since we arrived in New York." 
 
 Fanny seldom contradicts her sister. She manages 
 her differently. But " brazen " and " baggage " are too 
 much. 
 
 " Are you Robert Greene's wife or only his kept-
 
 IT IS THE LAW. HI 
 
 woman? You want two lawful husbands and deny 
 Mabelle one." 
 
 Jane stands up and comes over to her sister, her face 
 flushing and paling with anger. 
 
 " I would hit you if I had anything handy. I will 
 smack your face if ever you repeat such a thing. She 
 has bought you for a $50 dress. She did it deliberately. 
 O, she's artful and deep, if she is a 'sweet-voiced in- 
 nocent thing ' ! She wheedles my husband away from 
 me and buys my sister ! I must be turned out in the 
 cold, and she won't be satisfied till I am." 
 
 Fanny has had so wide an experience with her 
 sister's temper that she does not get angry. She is 
 merely pained a very little. When the gust is over 
 she returns to the raw spot, but deliberately this time. 
 
 " Have you two lawful husbands or one, Jenny ? Let 
 me understand clearly." 
 
 " That's an entirely different matter. It has nothing 
 to do with the case. I had a perfect right to marry 
 him if I chose ; but I gave Robert up when Willie 
 came, and he should have given her up." 
 
 " It seems to me that Robert had given you up some 
 weeks before." 
 
 Her sister's anger blazes up again. 
 
 " Don't you dare talk to me like that, Fanny. I did 
 not commit bigamy, and I am not a fugitive from jus- 
 tice." 
 
 The family temper is in Fanny, but it is under better 
 control. She is finer grained and better bred. She has 
 had more schooling and has improved her opportunities 
 better. But she turns to her sister now with her bright 
 brown eyes gleaming and her lips tightly compressed. 
 
 "If I married twice, it was the same man," she said
 
 112 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 slowly. " One man did not live with me one day, and 
 another man the next. It seems to me you have no sense 
 of shame. I will let my neck get cold from one man's 
 arm before it is warmed by another. Be quiet, Jane ! 
 I shall not quarrel with you. If you wish me to leave 
 you, I will go this afternoon. But if you wish me to 
 stay, you must control your tongue. I have put up with 
 a great deal from you, and you only get worse. I will 
 put up with no more. You may choose between your 
 temper and your sister." 
 
 Mrs. Smith-Green's brooding and passion have brought 
 her to the verge of tears. 
 
 " If you cared for me, Fanny, you would sympathize 
 with me ; but you only want an excuse to go and live 
 with her. She would be very glad to get you." 
 
 Fanny smiles. " Don't be a fool, Jenny. What's the 
 matter with you any way ? " 
 
 " I want my rights as a wife. I want him to live with 
 me. I want him to put her away. What right had she 
 to sit at the head of his table and entertain me ? It was 
 my place, not hers. He may give her the flat, but he 
 shall give me the house, and he shall live with me, not 
 her. If he don't, I will make it hot for him." She is 
 in tears now. 
 
 " Stop crying and listen to me. Don't you know that 
 house belongs to her ? Don't you know the house we 
 live in belongs to her ? Don't you know that your rent 
 which would be $900 a year is given you by her, not 
 him ? Don't you know that she is his niece, and he is 
 her guardian and the manager of her property ? Don't 
 you know he is probably spending all the money he has 
 of his own on you and part of hers perhaps ? Don't 
 you"
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 113 
 
 " I don't believe one word of it. She has been filling 
 you with lies." 
 
 " You are very rude, Jane. She never said a word to 
 me. Gypsy was showing me her elder sister's picture, 
 and asked me if I thought Mabelle looked like her 
 mother ; and when I did not understand how her and 
 Willie's sister could be Mabelle's mother, she explained 
 to me. They have been married six years I saw the 
 record. Mabelle's a very rich woman, but Willie is not 
 rich. I heard the elevator boy tell a gentleman that 
 the flats on our floor were $900 a year they had been 
 1,000. If you should live with him, Mabelle would 
 have to live with you, for he is her guardian and the 
 property is hers." 
 
 " No, she wouldn't. I would send her to boarding- 
 school till she was twenty-one. What you say makes it 
 only worse. There's no excuse for him. He has entire 
 control of the property, if he is her guardian, and can 
 do just what he likes with it. He can give me all he 
 wishes. The point is, he don't want to. But I will 
 make him or he will be sorry." 
 
 " Don't do anything rash, Jane. You are very unjust 
 and very unfair. He is not a man to be threatened, and 
 if you act while you are angry you will certainly regret 
 it." 
 
 " I will take care of my own business." 
 
 " Put on your bonnet and come down to the beach. 
 Try and distract your attention." 
 
 " I feel better already. I am glad I have had it out." 
 
 " You were so bad, that is not saying much. I hope 
 the improvement will continue for some time." 
 
 Returning, they walk along behind a very loving pair 
 for whom the narrow plank is all too wide. Something
 
 114 IT JS THE LAW. 
 
 about the man's back attracts Jane's attention and 
 Fanny's also. It seems familiar to her. Looking at 
 Jane's face she sees it set and white with anger. 
 
 The two gates are close together gates are set in 
 pairs along this avenue and Jane stands rigid by hers 
 without attempting to open it. 
 
 The woman in front of them passes through, the man 
 remains outside. There is a murmur of voices, then a 
 man says distinctly, " I'll be back in a few minutes. I 
 want to get a few cigars." 
 
 There is no mistake about it. He kisses her, there in 
 the public street, and she scuttles to the piazza and 
 blows him a kiss in return. 
 
 He turns back, takes two steps with his eyes on the 
 boards, and halts suddenly, looking up. 
 
 Jane stands directly in front of him and puts her 
 hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Robert Greene, what are you doing here with that 
 woman ? Who is she ? " 
 
 " My Gosh ! Jane ! " He is so near to fainting that 
 Fanny pities him. 
 
 " I'll ' my gosh ' you if you don't tell me. Who is she, 
 I say?" 
 
 " She's only a little girl I picked up on the beach. 
 I'll come back in a minute. Say, Jane, let me go now. 
 I swear I will " 
 
 He recovers his breath, twists free, and runs like a 
 river in Thrace, leaving Jane to admire his glancing 
 soles. She controls the impulse to chase him. He 
 is too fleet-footed to be caught by her. She is no Har- 
 palyce. 
 
 " The wretch ! The villain ! " she exclaims passion- 
 ately. " Wait till you come back, and you will wish
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 115 
 
 you had never been born you and your trollops you 
 pick up on the beach." 
 
 This latter remark is directed to the next house, but 
 the "trollop" does not hear it, having gone in and 
 missed the fun. But a gentleman, swinging in a ham- 
 mock strung from the gate-post to the division fence, 
 has seen the whole comedy from start to finish, and he 
 laughs till his sides ache. 
 
 " Say it again, Jane, say it again ! " he calls out. And 
 a roar of laughter follows, that drives the two women 
 into their house. 
 
 " O, Jane, how could you make such a scene ? " Fan- 
 ny is mortified and distressed beyond measure. 
 
 "Why shouldn't I?" Ought I to let him desert me, 
 shame me, disgrace me in the way he has, and not make 
 a scene? I'll tear that woman's eyes out if I meet her. 
 The wretch ! " 
 
 " But Jane" 
 
 Don't talk to me ! I won't stand it. To think how 
 I have worked for that man for two years past ! worked 
 for him, slaved for him ; and starved for him, and this is 
 my return ! This is all the thanks I get ! He takes the 
 e$60 I have saved, fifty cents at a time the money I made 
 stitching on overalls and steals $600 more to come here 
 for a grand spree with vile women on my hard-earned 
 money. You wait till I get my hands on him once more, 
 lie won't get away from me again." 
 
 " Are you crazy, Jane ? " 
 
 -Crazy? It is you that are crazy. Isn't he my hus- 
 band, Robert Greene, whom I married two years ago? 
 Didn't I see him and hear him kiss that trollop ? Picked 
 her up on the beach, did he ? Wait till I pick him up on 
 tin- beach! "
 
 116 JT IS THE LAW. 
 
 Fanny laughs nervously. She is amused at her sister, 
 but she is shocked also. 
 
 " But you seem to forget all about Willie. If you " 
 
 " That has nothing to do with this case. The judge 
 explained it all to me. What passes between Willie 
 and me is none of Robert's business. What passes 
 between Robert and me is none of Willie's business. 
 I am Willie's lawful wife, and Robert is my lawful 
 husband. He remains my lawful husband until death, 
 or until he has the marriage annulled. Neither Willie 
 nor I can ask to have my second marriage annulled. It 
 must stand as long as Robert likes, and he alone has a 
 right to have it set aside. But until he does he shall 
 not pick up vile women on the beach, and I will have 
 a divorce from him for this day's work. Don't answer 
 me, Fanny; it is the law."* 
 
 " That is all rubbish, Jane. It may be the law, but 
 you cannot live with two husbandsf even if you want 
 to." 
 
 " It doesn't seem to me that I have even one," the 
 other returns wrathfully. " My lawful marriages with 
 two men and your bigamy with one seem to have had 
 the same result, that neither of us has any." 
 
 Robert's speed does not abate until the hotel is reached 
 and he sinks panting into a chair in the bar-room. 
 
 " What an escape !" he murmurs. " What could have 
 brought Jane here ? How quickly she has tracked 
 me ! " 
 
 * And it is. She is perfectly right. 
 
 t And in that she was wrong. There is nothing in the law to prevent 
 a wife, under such circumstances, living with both husbands. Both 
 must contribute to her support and both are entitled to her society. 
 Nor will the law admit that there is any immorality or wrong-doing, 
 or release either husband. Th >y must divide her or go without a wife.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 117 
 
 When his brain clears and he cools off, he drinks two 
 holy-crosses sour slowly, one after another. 
 
 There's naught, no doubt so much that the spirit calms 
 as rum and true religion, but since the visible stock of 
 the world's supply of the latter has run down so low 
 that very few ever venture to buy a future in it, the 
 former is nearly always used to steady the nerves after 
 a shock. Blame him not ! Where could he find, at 
 Long Branch, anything else to bring ease to his mind 
 or strength to his legs ? He scorned, ay ! he loathed 
 the " red, red rum." But Santa Cruz is white, and 
 then, just think of the name ! It was the nearest thing 
 he could get to the other. He always conformed to the 
 prejudices of the world when it paid. He was piously 
 inclined in Tipton. If he had not been he would never 
 have been able to steal $600. 
 
 When he goes to the reading-room he sits down at a 
 table, and with some difficulty composes the following 
 note: 
 
 " MY ADORED ANGEL : You have been brave and true,but I must put 
 your courage and devotion to one more test which I know you will 
 gladly accept for my sweet sake. I am again in trouble, in serious 
 trouble, which you alone can keep me from. I will explain all to you 
 when we meet, but now you must do exactly what I say, or we may 
 never meet again. If you love me, my angel, do what I say. Pack 
 your trunks immediately. Don't wait a miuute. I will send a carnage 
 for you at eight o'clock. Pay the landlady the board for a week, and 
 tell her that your mother has taken rooms at the West End for us, and 
 we must go there. Tell her that you will call on her with your mother 
 to-morrow to thank her. The driver will bring you to me. Don't 
 delay him, and don't let any one know anything has happened to me. 
 Come to me, darling, come to your own. 
 
 "BABY BOB." 
 
 At ten o'clock she is sitting on his lap in a room of the 
 Metropolitan Hotel, New York. Her " Baby Bob " has
 
 118 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 explained the reason for their sudden flight from the 
 Branch not entirely to her satisfaction, but she will not 
 let him know that. 
 
 "And could they arrest you in New Jersey, Bob 
 dearest, when they cannot in New York ? You haven't 
 done anything wrong. Is it the law ? " 
 
 "My angel, they don't ask any such questions in New 
 Jersey. It's not like New York. Here they hunt up 
 the law, and if they can't find one they don't arrest you, 
 but there they just run a man in and send him to jail. It's 
 only after he has served his term of two or three years 
 behind the bars that they even let him ask if it is the law>
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 119 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Every wise woman buildeth her house. 
 
 Prov. xiv, I. 
 
 WHEN Smith said that Greene was the fly in his pot 
 of ointment, he merely gave expression to a thought 
 that had been formulating in his mind from the time 
 when in the judge's private room he had asked Jane 
 where Greene was. It had soured all his pleasure in 
 finding his boyhood's love. After the first few caresses, 
 an invisible person had seemed ever-present a mocking, 
 sneering demon. He could not bring himself to believe 
 that they were alone, even during the hour that Fanny 
 left them to themselves ; and the words that would have 
 flowed readily under any other circumstances, could not 
 be uttered. If he had never married Jane it would 
 have been a very different matter. Then the thought 
 of her husband would have been a pleasure, perhaps a 
 delight. Now, it was exactly what he had said a fly 
 in the pot. 
 
 That the final result would have been the same had 
 Jane never remarried, is certain. It would merely have 
 taken longer for its development. There would have 
 been many complications which Greene's existence pre- 
 vented ; but nothing could have kept back the discovery 
 that the Jane he loved and married was not the Jane he 
 had found. 
 
 It was the truth, that he had kept fresh and green his 
 memory of the sweet and shy village girl of sixteen.
 
 120 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 It was the truth, that he had never loved anyone as he 
 had the timid, clinging bride of a few months. Perhaps 
 he never would or could. It was the truth that he 
 loved her still. But it was his child-wife that he loved ; 
 not this fair and fat woman. 
 
 He would have taken it for granted at first that she 
 whose character had been formed in the narrow lines of 
 village life, whose passions had been uncontrolled by 
 the amenities among the gentle, whose nature had been 
 hardened and whose judgment had been warped by 
 years of penury, was truly his tender, unformed 
 wife in another dress. He would have sought for and 
 imagined resemblances. He would have shut his eyes 
 for a long time to the fact that he could not find them. 
 But however reluctant he might have been to accept the 
 truth, the time would surely have come when he would 
 have been forced to recognize it. 
 
 Two wives are what he had said one too many. 
 Many men make the same discovery concerning a single 
 wife ; but all men who have more than one must make 
 it, sooner or later, whatever the circumstances may be, 
 provided the wife is an equal and not a slave. 
 
 Mabelle's merciless probing brought the truth clearly 
 before him. He had tried to put the thought away ; 
 but the mere mention of Greene's name had compelled 
 him to recognize the fact that he did not care whether 
 Mrs. Greene ever crossed his path again. He was 
 ashamed of the feeling and he could not but rejoice in 
 it. It seemed like treachery to the girl-wife whom he 
 should never cease to love, that he could not accept her 
 in whatever guise she came ; and yet it was pleasant 
 to know that this gross woman whom he feared had no 
 influence over him.
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 121 
 
 His appeal to Mabelle bad not been in order to sbow 
 her that he loved her better, or that she had misjudged 
 him. No thought of Mabelle or of self-justification 
 crossed his mind. It was because a great fear had come 
 to him, and he wanted help. He clung to Mabelle as he 
 might have clung to Frank. Two years of right-living 
 under Mabelle's influence had really weakened his ap- 
 petite for the pleasures of the stable. The path which had 
 been followed for a few months as a matter of courtesy 
 and accident, had become really the more attractive. 
 Like a man, he did not understand that it was the effect 
 of his wife's influence, and he honestly attributed it to 
 lack of temptation. Here was a temptation almost irres- 
 istible to return to the lowest depth and he looked 
 at it with a shudder. He appreciated how strong it was. 
 Jane was legally his wife. He believed that she loved 
 him. She took it for granted that he loved her without 
 his saying so, and he had not the courage to tell her the 
 truth. But lie could not in his heart regard her as his 
 wife. She was to his mind but a strange and unknown 
 woman whom he disliked rather than liked, because her 
 existence seemed to rob him of one whom he did love. 
 
 Had she been another man's wife, to whom he had 
 been attracted, he might not have welcomed the tempta- 
 tion, but he might riot have put it away. It was the 
 thought of Greene that made this particular temptation 
 repulsive, and this alone that kept him in subjection to 
 the law of his mind. 
 
 He may not have been fully conscious of it, and 
 probably was not. The drowning man clutching at a 
 plank is not fully conscious that he is drowning. His 
 action is mechanical. Smith's was probably the same 
 when he grasped Mabelle. But he saw instantly that she
 
 122 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 was his only means of escape from a position which grew 
 more and more unpleasant every time he considered it. 
 
 Rosedale was very inappropriately named. There was 
 not a rose any where around it, and the house itself was 
 on a ledge near the top of the north side of Storm King. 
 
 As the school-boy just beginning Greek derives 
 Moses from Middle town, so Mabelle had instantly derived 
 this name when Smith had objected to the village 
 calling it Rosendale's, from the previous owner of the 
 little hut which he had taken for a debt and transform- 
 ed into a retreat from the summer heat of the city. 
 
 He had built a comfortable country house of the 
 American pattern. The Queen Anne and King Louis 
 houses in the valley looked up at it in contempt, and 
 the bucolic minds gave it none of the reverence wasted 
 on them. But it had a dozen comforts and conven- 
 iences they lacked, for not a dollar had been wasted on 
 show, and the view was equalled by only one other in 
 the state. A covered piazza, fifteen feet wide and two 
 stories high, on. "three sides, was used for dining and 
 living rooms ; and here, above the highest flight of the 
 mosquito, and far beyond the line of dew, the fiercest 
 summer day to those roasting and broiling in the boxes 
 of the village below was delicious June weather. 
 
 " I have invited Mrs. Carter over for your birthday, 
 Billy," Mabelle says. " Will you go over in the morn- 
 ing to Coldspring, or will you send Drivvels ? " 
 
 " Suppose there is no wind," he replies, giving her 
 hammock a swing. " The Fly cannot spread her wings 
 without it." 
 
 " I will not suppose it. There has been a breeze 
 ruffling the bay all day. We might have had a lovely 
 sail to Newburg and back."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 123 
 
 " Why didn't we go? " He is amused. 
 
 " Because I am so lazy. You might have gone." 
 
 " And left you here. What fun is there unless you 
 have somebody to admire your skill in handling the 
 boat and to enjoy the drive through the water." 
 
 " Mrs. Hart and Lilian would have supplied that. 
 And there's lots of women at the hotels and boarding- 
 houses, whom you know, that are dying for a sail on 
 the Fly." 
 
 " They are all a pack of empty-headed fools." 
 
 "Since when, Billy? You must not become misan- 
 thropic. There are lots of them more interesting than 
 I, if that's what you mean." 
 
 "You know that's nonsense. You know there isn't 
 another woman in the world that's fit to button 
 your shoes." He is angry and earnest. 
 
 " Do you really think so, Billy ? How foolish you 
 must be ! I wish some one else thought so." She does 
 not ; but she says it. Why women say such things no 
 man ever yet fathomed. Perhaps there is no "why." 
 
 "Dick Jones, for instance." His wits have been 
 sharpened. 
 
 " No, he thinks so now. I wish lie didn't." The 
 latter sentence is true at one moment and untrue the 
 next. This happened to be one of the odd-numbered 
 moments. 
 
 " Has he told you so ? The voice is quizzical, but 
 only by an effort. 
 
 " Yes." She is miles away, and has answered with- 
 out thought. 
 
 There is a sense of suffocation in his throat. He can 
 scarcely breathe, and he knows that lie must not try to 
 speak. The words of her prophecy as to her " fate "
 
 124 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 burn like caustic. His silence brings her back slowly, 
 and their eyes meet. 
 
 " Don't, Mabelle, don't fall in love with the handsome 
 face of this modern Paris," he says earnestly. " If you 
 do, you will break your heart. He is everything that a 
 woman desires, but he has no force of character. He 
 can be led by the nose anywhere and almost by anybody. 
 He takes the last word and follows the last face. He 
 has no persistence ; no sand. In everything else there's 
 not a word to be said against him ; but to a woman like 
 you such weakness would be despicable." 
 
 She smiles at him. " Will you go, or will you send 
 Drivvels ? " 
 
 " I will go, of course. You will come with me?" 
 
 She hesitates, and Dick Jones is lost, not she. 
 
 " Yes. Shall we take all? The Fly is large eiiongh." 
 
 " No ; let us go alone, If we get to Coldspring be- 
 fore the time we can take a cab and drive out to Brook- 
 side. Otherwise we must wait at the dock." 
 
 She nods assent. 
 
 " Who else will be here ? " 
 
 " Only Mr. and Mrs. Grey Nellie Brown that was. 
 Gypsy came up with them on the boat. They are at 
 Caldwell's. Old Mr. Brown has not forgiven them, but 
 he has withdrawn his objections. I don't know whether 
 it should be called an armistice, or strained diplomatic 
 relations. He won't speak to or see Grey, but he won't 
 make his daughter unhappy, as she will be that soon 
 enough, he says. He pays Grey $3,000 yearly until Nellie 
 has cause to complain then the allowance stops at once 
 and forever. What do you think of it ? " 
 
 " I hope it will be effective. Grey is certainly an ad- 
 venturer, but he may be able to settle down on that.
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 125 
 
 I am glad you invited them, for I want to meet him and 
 study him. Why not keep them here for a week ? " 
 
 There is a light in Mrs. Carter's eyes, and a slight 
 feverishness of manner that Mabelle notices and wonders 
 at when the two women meet the next morning. The Fly 
 has made the run over from Cornwall in quick time, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Smith reach Brookside nearly an hour be- 
 fore the preparations are completed for the flitting. 
 
 The valises, bundles, two children and nurse have been 
 started off in Charlie Warren's carryall. Dick has gone 
 into the house for some cigars. Mrs. Carter stands 
 waiting at the door. Mabelle, who has been sitting in a 
 hammock, sees a flower she wants and goes to pick it. 
 There is a larger bunch at the end of the side piazza, and 
 as she drops on her knees beside it to select the choicest, 
 she hears the murmur of voices. Unconsciously she 
 glances up. Her eyes, on a level with the piazza floor, 
 have a clear view of the parlor, for the curtain in front of 
 the far side-window has been drawn up a few inches, one 
 shutter is open, and she cannot help both seeing and 
 hearing the small comedy. Mrs. Carter has stepped back 
 into the parlor, closed the door, and she and Dick, clasped 
 closely in one another's arms, are kissing as if it were a 
 farewell before an execution. Perhaps there is some such 
 feeling in Mrs. Carter's mind as she recalls the fact that 
 she is taking Dick into the camp of the enemy. 
 
 There is no mistaking the Pandemian for the Uranian 
 kiss, and Mabelle's face pales slightly, then colors, as she 
 rises quickly and walks away, her footsteps making no 
 sound on the soft lawn keeping the flowers. There is 
 ;i smile on her lips as she walks slowly to the carriage 
 where Smith is standing in some impatience. 
 
 " They will be here in half a minute, Billy ; give them 
 that in which to bid good-bye."
 
 126 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 " To what?" 
 
 " ' Midnight talks,moonlight walks ; the glance of the 
 eye and heartfelt sigh,' " she replies mischievously. 
 
 Smith grins. " Was Gypsy right ? " 
 
 " Yes. She is always right." 
 
 He colors as he thinks of what she said about himself. 
 
 The two truants appear in the doorway, their faces 
 slightly flushed. 
 
 " We are ready now. I am very sorry we have kept 
 you waiting so long." 
 
 " It is a perfect delight to wait here, Mrs. Carter. 
 One can only regret that it is not forever when it is 
 waiting with you," Smith replies. " How you can tear 
 yourself away from here for our ruder and breezier sig- 
 nal station I cannot imagine. Is it possible, may I dare 
 hope, that it is from some personal regard for me?" 
 The tender concern of his voice, the affectionate caress 
 he gives to the words, the strictly confidential manner, 
 set them all laughing. 
 
 " You have not answered my question," he says, re- 
 proachfully, when they are seated in the carriage and 
 moving along the hard sandy road. "May I hope that 
 it is because you are kind? " 
 
 " Am I not going especially to honor you and for no 
 other purpose? Are you thirty-one years old to-day 
 without understanding how hard it is for a woman to 
 show her " she casts her eyes down in modest confu- 
 sion, blushes divinely, and whispers so that all can hear 
 " preference openly. 
 
 No bashful maiden of sixteen could have done it bet- 
 ter, and their mirth has not subsided by the time they 
 reach the village street and straighten up to run the 
 gauntlet of curious and inquisitive eyes that stare at 
 them from every porch or window.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 127 
 
 Smith does the honors of the boat, helping the ladies 
 as if they were eggs, and as he lifts Mabelle lightly to 
 the deck, he wickedly winks at her, and she answers 
 with a decidedly affirmative nod, her eyes brimming 
 with mischief. 
 
 The Fly was a thirty five foot skimming dish, fifteen 
 feet wide, with plenty of floor, stiff as a church, having 
 a weather helm, and a cockpit as comfortable as a bar- 
 ber's chair. Smith had pulled out the stiff church-pew 
 seat, and replaced it with a wide one having an in- 
 clined back a divan in fact. The seat and back were 
 supplied with soft cushions that could be stowed away, 
 and every two feet there were broad slings for the arms. 
 
 " Isn't this comfortable, Nellie ? " Mabelle asks, as she 
 piles half-a-dozen pillows and curls up. " Do as I do." 
 
 But Smith arranges them for Mrs. Carter with a de- 
 votion that is almost touching. " If there is a rose leaf 
 rumpled, let me know," he tells her tenderly. 
 
 " There is not, I assure you," she replies, as she settles 
 down on them. " Agnes, be very careful with the chil- 
 dren." 
 
 " Rest aizy, mum ; I shall not let go me howld." 
 
 " Is that her name ? " The whisper is very confiden- 
 tial. 
 
 " Yes," she replies, in the same tone. " And my cook is 
 named Edith Florence, and the chambermaid, Maud 
 Ethel. Her full name " nodding to the nurse " is 
 Agnes Cordelia Flannagan. She has dropped the O, 
 and looks, down with scorn upon the cook, whose patro- 
 nymic is O'Shaughnessy." 
 
 Dick feels left out in the co.d, and lies at full length 
 on the cushions blowing rings from his cigar. The 
 women are on either side of Smith, and there is a small
 
 128 IT 1$ THE LA]]'. 
 
 mountain of pillow between him and Mabelle. A se- 
 cret sense of relief comes when Smith, who is too thor- 
 ough a yachtsman to let pleasure interfere with duty, 
 gives his whole attention to the boat. The wind is fresh 
 from the nor-west and the Fly is carrying more canvas 
 than a coasting schooner in a white-ash breeze. 
 
 It is the short leg. The Fly is jammed into the wind 
 as closely as she will go, the sail flattened down and the 
 boom aboard. They have just passed another boat 
 working up the river, and every one except Smith and 
 Drivvels is watching it and waving handkerchiefs. 
 Drivvels stands on the deck with his back to the cock- 
 pit, leaning against the mast and keeping a sharp look- 
 out. Smith, glancing under the boom, sees Box, the 
 small Carter boy, climb suddenly upon the seat at the 
 farther end, behind his nurse, lean over the cock-pit rail 
 on the lee side as the boat heels a little with a puff of 
 wind, topple over it on the deck, roll to the low 
 bulwark, and fall overboard as he attempts to rise. 
 
 It is not ten seconds from the time the boy had climb- 
 ed upon the seat before he is in the water. There is no 
 opportunity to do anything to save him from going over- 
 board ; but, as he topples over on the deck, Smith calls 
 out in a ringing voice, " Drivvels, here ! Quick. ! " Then 
 he springs to the stern and dives as the boy swirls by, 
 striking the water within a few feet of him. 
 
 The boat, left to herself, comes slowly up into the 
 wind, and her sails shiver as Drivvels leaps into the 
 cock-pit and casts off the sheet, holding it by a single 
 turn around the cleet. 
 
 " Sit down ! " he commands, as the women and Dick 
 spring to their feet ; " sit down or your heads will go off." 
 The swinging boom forces compliance. " It's nothing,"
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 129 
 
 he says, grimly ; " the boss swims like a duck and wants 
 to show them fellers he can swim faster nor they can 
 sail." 
 
 Nobody believes him. But no one knows what is the 
 matter. Their faces are pale, and their eyes are strained 
 to see the swimmer, now half a mile away. No one 
 misses Box. 
 
 Suddenly an unearthly howl comes from the nurse, 
 Agnes. " Master Frank, where is master Frank? He's 
 in the say ! He's in the say ! " and she climbs up on the 
 weather side to cast herself overboard. Dick hinders 
 her, but he has to pull her down and sit on her to do it. 
 He cannot stop her howls. 
 
 " My boy, my boy ! " Mrs. Carter attempts to 
 stand, and falls back half fainting. 
 
 " Is safe and sound, ma'am, aboard that boat yonder," 
 Drivvels says firmly, pointing to the other yacht, whose 
 sails are shaking. " There's nothing to be worried at. 
 There's nothing whatever the matter. The boss had 
 him the minute he struck the water, and has been learn- 
 ing him how to swim until they picked 'em up. We'll 
 have 'em aboard again in another minute.'' 
 
 " Is it true ? " she asks Mabelle, whose arms are around 
 her. 
 
 " Look and see for yourself, ma'am. There they are ! 
 They are calling to you." 
 
 Drivvels brings the Fly around the other boat with 
 the skill of a juggler. Smith is standing on the weather 
 side by the stern, the boy on his right arm, and as Driv- 
 vels steers the Fly within six inches of the Bella ho 
 grasps the shroud with his left hand and swings himself 
 aboard. 
 
 " Well done, Drivvels, well done ! " he calls out, as he 
 9
 
 130 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 drops Box into the cockpit on the still howling nurse. 
 " Sit on her mouth, Dick, for heaven's sake." 
 
 The half-dozen men in the other yacht cheer frantic- 
 ally as the boats part company again, and Mabelle and 
 Dick wave their handkerchiefs and return the cheer, 
 but very feebly. Mrs. Carter is hugging her very wet 
 boy. Drivvels, with a wooden and expressionless face, 
 is giving every portion of his mind to his work, and the 
 nurse is on the floor leaning against the centre-board, 
 rubbing her eyes, and showing a great deal of white 
 stocking. 
 
 " Billy, come here," Mabelle commands. 
 
 " In a minute, my dearest," he replies, chaffingly. 
 
 He has taken Drivvels' place by the mast, and has 
 emptied the water out of his shoes. The second one 
 is hard to get on again. 
 
 " Come here, now," she repeats, firmly. 
 
 "I am too wet, just now, ducky love." 
 
 "I want you wet and as you are. Come ! " 
 
 He leaps down into the cockpit beside her, for she is 
 standing near the forward end, with one arm on the 
 centre-board box. 
 
 " What is it, Mabelle ? " She has made him a little 
 anxious. 
 
 " I want to kiss you," she says, with a sob. 
 
 His face flushes. " But you will get wet," he replies, 
 with the keenest regret, as if that were an insurmount- 
 able barrier. He is bending over her, and she clasps her 
 arms around his neck. " I want to get wet from you." 
 She turns her face up to his, her eyes filled with tears, 
 and kisses him three times. She feels him tremble a 
 he returns them, and releases him, 
 
 ^ You are cold."
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 131 
 
 "With these flannels on? Nonsense! But you are 
 wet," he says, remorsefully 
 
 " I wish I were, I would never let my clothes dry. I 
 would keep them as they were, to " 
 
 " O, Mr. Smith, how can I thank you for saving 
 Frank's life ? " Mrs. Carter interrupts. " What can I 
 do or say ? " 
 
 Both of her hands are holding his. He knows that 
 if he will give her a chance she too will kiss him. But 
 Mabelle's first kisses are on his lips, and it would be 
 profanation to let any others rest there. 
 
 " Nonsense," he repeats, kindly. It's a favorite word 
 with him. " The boy tumbled overboard and I picked 
 him up. That's nothing. You must get accustomed to 
 his tumbling overboard. I fell in twenty times before 
 I was twelve, and never once asked who pulled rne 
 out." 
 
 The latter part of the sentence was not true. Smith 
 could " lie as fast as a horse could trot " when it served 
 a purpose. 
 
 " But you risked your life ? " 
 
 " Why, no ! I take a header like that every time we 
 come out alone, don't I, Drivvels ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Drivvels, not changing a muscle of his 
 face. " I've known him to do that mor'n a thousand 
 times." 
 
 At this there is a howl of laughter from Dick, and a 
 broad smile from the others. Drivvels had been acquired 
 when the yacht had been purchased, a month previous- 
 ly ; but evidently he was not going to let the skipper 
 out-lie him. 
 
 " Box had better have some dry clothing," Smith sug- 
 gests. " Haven't you sojne handy in those bundles ? "
 
 132 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 " I've had a bully swim," Box says to Cox, as Agnes 
 gets the necessary apparel and yanks him forward to 
 change his sailor suit. 
 
 Then they laugh again. His mother's fear disappears, 
 and she feels like slapping him. 
 
 " I like that boy," Smith tells her. " When I turned 
 him over and said, ' Now let's have a little swim,' he 
 spluttered for a moment, and as soon as he got the water 
 out of his mouth he asked me if I could float on my 
 back. I was teaching him to tread water when the 
 Bella came up to us. He hasn't an atom of fear." 
 
 Mrs. Carter laughs nervously. " I wish he had a 
 little. He is always getting into scrapes. But won't 
 you catch cold ? " 
 
 " Not I. If I thought there was the slightest chance 
 of it, I should retire to the small cabin in the bow and 
 change my clothing. I have a suit in there, but I think 
 I look so much better in this sailor toggery I feel so 
 much better, anyway that I am not willing to lose 
 the good impression it made in my favor at Brookside. 
 I'll be dry by the time we land." 
 
 " Do you know," Dick says, lazily, " that, if you were 
 not a very much married man already, I should begin to 
 think you intended to trifle with my aunt's affections ? 
 She had better keep a weather eye open isn't that 
 what you call it ? " 
 
 " Billy's attentions are strictly honorable," Mabelle 
 says. " There's luck in odd numbers, and, having two 
 wives, there's no reason why he shouldn't have three. 
 How does the idea strike you, Billy ? " 
 
 " That's just what I have been thinking of all day. 
 Monogamy is logically wrong. Everything is in threes. 
 Every thought is triune. You cannot conceive of the
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 133 
 
 number 2 except as limited by 1 and 3, or as hav- 
 ing a figure 1 on one side, and a figure 3 on the other, 
 these other two being its logical determinants. Every 
 idea or conception is subject to the same law of the 
 ' intelligent triad,' and the idea of a wife is no more an 
 exception than is that of a Deity, which finds in this law 
 the necessity for a Trinity. If Mabelle is number 2, 
 it's because Jane is number 1, and somebody else, logi- 
 cally, should be number 3." 
 
 " Please excuse me," Mrs. Carter says ; " I do not 
 want one-third of a man." 
 
 " Billy" isn't clear," Mabelle hastens to explain. 
 " What Pythagoras really says is that every thought is 
 made up of a definite one and an indefinite two. Now his 
 thought of a wife is made up of the definite Me and the 
 indefinite Jane and the indefinite You. To divide him 
 up would be to make each of you a definite one, and in- 
 troduce six other woman as ' logical determinants.' I 
 don't like that phrase, Billy. It's not clear. No, you 
 must remain indefinite even as Jane does." 
 
 " And when, in the name of the seven Sutherland 
 sisters, did you read Pythagoras ? " She is a constant 
 source of wonder to Dick. 
 
 " Billy lias made a collection of the ' remains,' and I 
 have read his manuscript translation. You see, do you 
 not, that there is no question of landlord and tenant ; no 
 question of a division of the property, only of its use ? 
 I hold him as tenant in possession, by your gracious per- 
 mission and Jane's for life or good behavior ; and 
 until I cease to be the wife in esse you both must re- 
 main in pos*e a mere potentiality, like a cardinal in 
 petto or a bishop in partibus." 
 
 " But that's worse yet. You don't give me even the 
 third to which every widow is entitled by law."
 
 134 IT /-s THE LA W. 
 
 " Not every widow," Smith says, lightly. " In a short 
 time few widows will be so fortunate as you have been. 
 One-sixth or one-ninth will be the best they can claim. 
 They will be lucky if they get the twenty-fourth." 
 
 "How is that? I do not understand." 
 
 " When I married Jane, she was endowed by the cere- 
 mony with a one-third life interest in my estate. When 
 I married Mabelle I was not called upon to endow her. 
 The law took from Jane one-half her life interest and 
 gave it to Mabelle so that each now only holds one- 
 sixth. If you will honor me with your hand your 
 heart! hope is mine the law will take from each of them 
 one-third of what they have left and give it to you, so 
 that the portion of each wife will be one-ninth. The 
 first wife is compelled to dower the second wife, and 
 both to dower the third." 
 
 " Jesting aside," Dick says, " do you mean that you 
 can marry again, lawfully, without losing either of your 
 wives ? " 
 
 " Yes, with certain little formalities." 
 
 " And these are ? " 
 
 " A divorce, valid in the state where I marry, but 
 not valid in any other. Then the third marriage will 
 be valid in this state, and the divorce will not be, so I 
 will have three lawful wives, all of whom I must support." 
 
 " How long do these formalities take ? " 
 
 " That depends. If a strange state is selected, one 
 year's residence is required (but seldom insisted up- 
 on). I happen to be a lawful resident of three states and 
 a voter in two.* In either one it would take me about 
 
 * He is a natural-born citizen of the United States, but he is not a 
 voter in Rhode Island, although he has a legal residence there and is 
 the owner of a large amount of personal property. He was born of 
 American parents while temporarily outside the jurisdiction of the 
 United States (in Montana, within the jurisdiction of a trealy tribe), 
 and the Rhode Island election law grants suffrage in such cases only 
 when the natural born citizen owns real estate. Native born citizens
 
 IT IS THE LA IF. 135 
 
 four months to fulfil every lawful requirement and be 
 perfectly free to marry." 
 
 " Then there would be no impropriety in a married 
 man courting an unmarried woman? He could marry 
 her if he wished ? " 
 
 "' None whatever, in this state. The disabilities in 
 the case of a married man possessed of some small means 
 would be much less than those imposed on a poor 
 bachelor without money enough to pay his board or 
 rent in advance. All that idea of impropriety in mar- 
 ried men pursuing spinsters is past and gone it is a 
 mere survival of barbarism. The Court of Appeals 
 in 1883 * wiped it out. There's nothing in the fact 
 that a man is already married to keep him from courting 
 and marrying single women, or to keep single women 
 from being so courted." 
 
 " And sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose ?" 
 asks Dick. 
 
 " Certainly. Married women have equal rights to be 
 courted by single men, or married men for that matter. 
 But they haven't so many opportunities for the divorce." 
 
 " Then all you have said in jest this morning might 
 possibly be said to me in earnest by some married man 
 lawfully be said to me by him?" Mrs Carter is shock- 
 ed. She shivers. " Don't pretend any more. I won't 
 have it. Some one might think you were in earnest. 
 And how much jest it robs one of ! I shall never dare 
 flirt again, even for a minute." 
 
 Smith laughs. " You make a mountain out of a mole- 
 hill. Anything lawful is proper and right. Why ob- 
 ject if it is the law ? " 
 
 * 02 New York, 526. 
 
 in Rhode Maud do not have to own real estate, l>ut foreign-born (nat- 
 ural-born) cili/.'Mis and alien-horn (n;il nrali/ <!) citizens must own real 
 . in order to vote. TliU ^as a -lin of tl,c law makers, who re- 
 st -ict <! tin* registered voter- -o ttntiff malcit|j5iu. M forgetting tliat 
 troi-boril citizens mi^lil !>. erli T it i!'i-/'-\,,,ri\ or <>/< /<//<-l>orn..
 
 136 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The fining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold ; 
 But the Lord trieth the hearts. 
 
 Prov. xvn, 3. 
 
 WHEN Smith met Grey at lunch he looked at him 
 with some curiosity. That he should recognize in this 
 adventurer the particular insect that had given an un- 
 pleasant odor to what otherwise might have been a fra- 
 grant balm, was not to be expected. The smooth-shaven, 
 soft-voiced, and shy-mannered man bore no resemblance 
 to the full-whiskered Sunday-school teacher revealed in 
 the photograph Jane had shown him of her husband. 
 The change of his name from Greene to Grey, and the 
 removal of a beard, unreaped for ten years, not to men- 
 tion his recent marriage and his very presence in Smith's 
 house, made recognition impossible for any one except, 
 of course, Jane. The beard had been sacrificed since the 
 flight from Long Branch, but no disguise was ever yet 
 invented that could not be penetrated by a jealous 
 woman. 
 
 Grey was in ignorance of the events that had happen- 
 ed since he slipped away from Tipton between two days. 
 He supposed, naturally, that Jane had followed him to 
 New York, and that the meeting at Long Branch had 
 been but an accident, for he understood from her words 
 that she knew nothing of his marriage with Nellie 
 Brown. That there could be the remotest connection 
 between his easy-mannered host and his forsaken wife 
 would never occur to him.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 137 
 
 It did not take Smith more than a few minutes to 
 place Grey. "A country clerk," he said to himself, 
 'who has obtained a rather better education than usual 
 because he knows education is necessary to make a 
 knave." The others are slower in finding him out. It 
 is easy for them to see that he is not perfectly well- 
 bred, but the little slips are unconscious and do not 
 disturb his serenity, however much they annoy Mrs. 
 Grey, whose illusions are rapidly vanishing, if they 
 have not already disappeared. 
 
 Half-a-dozen stories by Smith of adventures among 
 his constituents while engaged in his last canvass, make 
 the luncheon exceedingly merry. Then the men and 
 their cigars find a place on the eastern veranda as the 
 women disappear. 
 
 " Ah ! " says Grey, leaning back and putting up his 
 feet on the rail, " tins is what I call solid comfort." 
 
 " What is your idea of perfect happiness ? " Dick 
 asks. 
 
 u Nothing to do ; plenty to eat, drink, and smoke ; 
 lots of pretty girls." Greene rather prides himself on 
 his epigrammatic powers in conversation. 
 
 " That's the Moslem idea, translated into modern 
 English," Smith says. " But it palls after a time. One 
 sighs for occupation." 
 
 " You must have plenty. I don't see how you can 
 find time to practice law, pull political wires, and still 
 have fun." 
 
 " I don't practice law. I only amuse myself at it." 
 
 " But you sent a lot of notes to my lawyer that 
 helped me out of the hole I got into by marrying Nellie. 
 I am very grateful indeed for it, and I told your wife 
 so yesterday."
 
 138 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 " That was nothing. I went over all that point once 
 for a constituent of mine, who was in for a worse sen- 
 tence than yours would have been, for illegal voting, and 
 I sent ray references in that case to your lawyer. My 
 sister has told me the story of your courtship and mar- 
 riage Mrs. Grey and she were schoolmates, as you 
 know but I should like to get the facts in order, for 
 they must be romantic. All the world loves a lover." 
 
 " Yes, it was romantic. About two years ago I went 
 to a little village up in the Adirondacks, for my health. 
 It was frightfully stupid, and I advertised for cor- 
 respondents. Among the answers was one from Nellie. 
 We corresponded for a year, exchanged photographs, 
 and finally fell in love. There was not the slightest 
 chance of her father's consenting, she was so young. 
 So I came down to New York, and we met at the minis- 
 ter's. Ten minutes after we met for the first time, we 
 were man and wife." 
 
 He had been born in Ridgeville and had never before 
 been out of the county. He liked lying for lying's sake. 
 
 " How did Brown find it out ? Did you tell him ? " 
 
 " Nellie was awfully scared after we were married, 
 and begged me not to press matters ; but I wasn't that 
 kind of a hairpin. After we had been married a week I 
 went to the old man and introduced myself as his son- 
 in-law. He reared up on his hind legs and howled for a 
 policeman. The policeman refused to arrest me at first, 
 but when the old man insisted, and charged me with 
 felony, he run me in. I will admit that I was awfully 
 scared when I heard him tell the captain that his 
 daughter was not sixteen years old when I married her, 
 and the captain reply that I would certainly get five 
 years. I never knew it was against the law to marry a 
 woman."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 139 
 
 " It has always been a felony to marry a girl under 
 sixteen years of age without her parent's consent. You 
 might have taken a girl of ten as your concubine,* her 
 parents consenting ; but you would not have been per- 
 mitted to marry her until she had lived with you as 
 your mistress for two years, and was twelve years old. 
 Any ceremony would have been null and void during 
 the two years between ten and twelve. This season of 
 immorality was religiously ' preserved ' by Church and 
 State for the profit of the parent, and he was protected 
 in it for six years, until the daughter was sixteen, with 
 every safeguard the law could throw around him and it. 
 A wife belongs to the husband. Marriage extinguishes 
 a parent's rights, and the marriage of the daughter took 
 from the parent the revenues from her sale or lease for 
 immoral purposes robbed him in fact of valuable prop- 
 erty. At first this robbery, otherwise marriage, was 
 punishable by death ; latterly we have been more mer- 
 ciful and have reduced the punishment to five years' im- 
 prisonment and a heavy fine. The parent might sell 
 his daughter in honorable marriage, if he wished to ; 
 but only for the four years between twelve and sixteen. 
 Concubinage and immorality were honored above mar- 
 riage, and permitted for the two years when marriage 
 was forbidden between ten and twelve. To deco}' the 
 child away from the parent's house for immoral pur- 
 poses was punished the same as marriage and for the 
 same reason the parent lost the money. f This was 
 
 * The age was raised to sixteen, June 24, 1887. 
 
 t 282 " A person who takes a female under the age of sixteen years, 
 ii-iilinnt the, consent of her father, mother, guardian, or other person 
 having legal charge of her person, for the purpose of marriage or for 
 immoral purposes is punishable by imprisonment for not more than 
 live years, or by a fine of $1,000, or by both. 1 ' Criminal Code, 1885.
 
 140 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 the law up to the present session of the Legislature. 
 Last spring we took from the parent the right to sell 
 the daughter, we wiped out this long-established right 
 of property, and we made it a felony whether the parent 
 consented or not.* But we kept the stigma upon mar- 
 riage." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 " A woman may be lawfully married at twelve. That 
 is common law. We have no statute law. If her 
 parents do not consent, the marriage may in some in- 
 stances be set aside. If the girl be fourteen f no court 
 in the state has power to set the marriage aside. It is 
 final. This is statute law. She is of full age to know 
 her mind, the civil law says. The marriage is right and 
 proper, the civil law says. But the man who marries 
 her must have five years' imprisonment, the criminal 
 law says, because marriage is not to be preferred to im- 
 morality, and no distinction should be made between 
 the one and the other, as a matter of morals." 
 
 " But why is it that the husband must go to prison 
 where the bride is over fourteen, when no court has a 
 right to set aside such a marriage ? Why should a man 
 be punished for making a valid and lawful marriage 
 against which no objection can possibly be urged, and 
 which must remain in force for life as proper and right ? " 
 
 278. " Rape is when the female is under the age of ten years." 
 Criminal Code, 1885. There is no felonious assault in case of con- 
 sent. People cs. Bransby, 32 Jf. Y. 525. " Resistance is necessary 
 M'hen the child is over ten years." People vs. Morrison, 1 Park, 625; 
 People vs. Dohring, 1 Park, 628. See also 6 England, 389; 1 Den. 
 142; 2 Clark, 567; 30 Ala. 54, 39 Mo., 322, 22 111, 160, etc. This was 
 amended June 24, 1887, making the age 16 instead of 10. 
 
 * Act of March 3, 1887. 
 
 t He succeeded in having this changed to sixteen by act of Feb. 21, 
 1887.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 141 
 
 " That is what I asked the hayseeds who botched the 
 bill last spring. There is no reason. There never was 
 any reason why a man should go to prison for marrying 
 a girl of fourteen, or even twelve, except in the parents' 
 right to sell the daughter and derive revenue from her 
 immoral conduct. When we took that right away, we 
 should have made the age for marriage without the 
 parents' consent which the Civil Code put at fourteen, the 
 lawful age when a man might marry a woman without 
 committing a crime keeping the lawful age for im- 
 morality at sixteen, and putting marriage at a premium. 
 But the lunkheads on the committee with me would 
 not admit that there was any difference between mar- 
 riage and immorality, or that there should be any dis- 
 tinction between them. When I proposed to harmonize 
 the civil and criminal codes by raising the fourteen years 
 in the former to the sixteen years in the latter, giving 
 them their way, but avoiding the conflict, they would 
 not listen. They insisted upon punishing the husband 
 because he robbed the parents of property they did not 
 possess which the law had previously taken away from 
 them." * 
 
 " What a commentary on our laws and our civiliza- 
 tion ! Why we are as bad as the Mormons ! " 
 
 " A thousand times worse. The Mormons are saints 
 compared with us, Dick ! They are not hypocrites and 
 liars, arid we are. They shout, ' Let a man openly and 
 honestly marry two or more wives ; but let us have no 
 immorality.' And they have no immorality. We whisper, 
 ' Let a man marry as many wives as he will, provided 
 
 * At the next session he forced them to harmonize the two codes and 
 wipe out this absurdity. The age of criminal and civil consent is now 
 sixteen years, by act of June 2-i, 1887, aud the act of Feb. 21, 1887.
 
 142 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 he does it underhandedly, sneakingly, and by a subter- 
 fuge ; but immorality is to be preferred to marriage.' 
 And we are morally rotten to the core. We put up an 
 immense sign, 
 
 HERE YOU CAN HAVE BUT ONE WIFE 
 
 Unless you comply with a few easy conditions. 
 
 The world rushing by cheers us, because it cannot 
 read the small letters. I know presonally twenty men 
 in New York to-day who have either three or four law- 
 ful wives, all acquired in the past three years. There 
 are thousands such. What will be our condition when 
 these laws have been in existence not three but twenty 
 years ; when they have sapped the foundations of moral- 
 ity and right living ; when they have destroyed all the 
 safeguards of social intercourse ? I jest and gibe at the 
 truth, but it is to emphasize and make clear our shame- 
 lessness to those who cannot understand any other argu- 
 ment. My blood boils when I think of it. I am on the 
 judiciary committee, but every measure I offer, every 
 suggestion I make, is met by the wooden-headed members 
 from the rural districts with the objection that 'There 
 ain't no popularity or politics in it.' They are afraid to 
 meddle with such questions. Everybody is satisfied with 
 things as they are, they say. ' If we meddle, we will dis- 
 please somebody ; make enemies and gain no friends. 
 That's not good politics.' It's enough to make a man 
 curse Thomas Jefferson and give his time and money to 
 a steam-laundry." * 
 
 * This is literally true. The Pall Mall Gazette's revelations of the 
 social vice and immorality of London shocked the civilized world. But 
 in England the lawful age of consent at that time was fourteen, and
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 143 
 
 Two small hands press firmly upon his shoulders. 
 " We applaud your sentiments, Billy ; but what do you 
 say to standing on the top of Storm King and pro- 
 nouncing the major excommunication against all those 
 who live in the valleys ? We have made up a little party. 
 Will you come and curse, or stay and smoke ? " 
 
 Smith looks at his guests. 
 
 " I will go, and thank you," Dick says. 
 
 " Then you may escort Mrs. Grey and Lilian and 
 make your sweetest love to each, Helen, beware ! He 
 is called the modern Paris." 
 
 " Come Robert," Mrs. Grey says, blushing slightly. 
 
 He rises, reluctantly. 
 
 " You may take care of Mrs. Hart and Gypsy, Mr. 
 Menelaus. See if you can be as charming to them as 
 Dick will certainly be to your wife and Lilian." 
 
 Parliament the next week raised it to sixteen. Here in New York the age 
 of criminal consent by statute law was only TEN years, with two 
 years of the girl's life, between ten and twelve, especially reserved for 
 concubinage and immorality, marriage being forbidden under any cir- 
 cumstances. But it took three years of the hardest labor by the ablest 
 and strongest members of the State legislature to get any change what- 
 ever, and it was not until June 24, 1887, that this disgrace to civilization 
 was finally expunged from the statutes. Even then it was done surrep- 
 titiously, and by driblets, one word being changed at one session and 
 another word at the next, to let the people down easy, so tliat.no cry 
 should come up from the rural counties that the legislature had inter- 
 fered with religious freedom and deprived parents of their immemo- 
 rial rights of revenue from their daughters' shame. The legislatures of 
 other states have KKJECTED bills to raise the age from ten years to four- 
 teen or sixteen, fearing to face the people whom it would rob of revenue. 
 The hypocrisy of the age is without parallel and almost incredible. 
 The men who shout the loudest against vice are those who resist with 
 every power they possess all attempts to take from them their freedom 
 within the laws to practice immorality. It is the professed Christian, 
 and him only, who to-day stands firmly opposed to all attempts to sim- 
 plify the marriage laws and prevent polygamy within the Jaw,
 
 144 IT 18 THE LAW. 
 
 Smith offers his arm to Mrs. Carter. He has been 
 holding Mabelle's hand and does not let go of it. His 
 mutely expressed wish has changed her arrangements. 
 
 " ' How happy could he be with either !' " he remarks, 
 as he looks after Dick. 
 
 " ' Why don't you speak for yourself, John? ' ' 
 
 " I let ' I dare not wait upon I would.' " 
 
 " ' He either fears his fate too much, 
 
 Or his deserts are small, 
 That dares not put it to the touch, 
 To gain or lose it all,' " 
 
 she quotes saucily. 
 
 " If this is a quotation game," Mrs. Carter says, " I 
 should think that ' two strings to one beau ' might well 
 make ' his seated heart knock at his ribs.' ' 
 
 " And do you ' think it legitimate fun to be poking 
 away at every one with a sort of double-barrelled 
 
 gun'?" 
 
 " Stop. You shall not make ' light of cerous things.' 
 I intended you to be the escort for Mrs. Grey and Mrs. 
 Carter, the two Helens. Your passion for everything 
 Hellenic made that very appropriate. I wonder if that 
 is the reason for " 
 
 She stops short suddenly in confusion. The thought 
 that had flashed across her mind is held back. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 She looks down, blushes, then half whispers, " ' Tis 
 Greece but living grease no more. ' 
 
 He laughs, but understands, and answers gravely, 
 " ' No more, for soul is wanting there.' " 
 
 " Mabelle, if you don't stop your love-making with 
 one half of him, at least, I'll tell the others."
 
 IT IS TUE LAW. 145 
 
 " Paris, for instance ? Troy is not so far off a six 
 hours' ride on the East Shore road. Did you notice 
 Menelaus turn green at seeing his sweet wife's open ad- 
 miration for Paris ? " The " Paris " is for her husband's 
 benefit. The scratch is for Helen's. 
 
 " But the real Paris did not take his Helen to Troy, 
 but to Tyre and then to Egypt, where he lost her, and 
 Menelaus found her again. They will slide over to 
 New Jersey." Smith's tone is so confident that one 
 would naturally infer that he had been consulted by 
 them and had arranged their route. 
 
 " And the real Helen was ten years older than Paris. 
 But you must not spoil my conceits by your ugly facts." 
 
 Smith is amused. He sees the second scratch, al- 
 though he misses the first. Mrs. Carter makes a mental 
 memorandum. She always pays her debts with interest, 
 like an honest woman. 
 
 " Do you know that I have been very much aston- 
 ished to find Smith such a gentleman," Grey remarks 
 to Dick, as they are playing a game of billiards before 
 dinner. 
 
 " Indeed ! what did you expect to find ? " Dick is 
 angry, and willing to draw Grey out, for he has a strong 
 admiration for his worldly and commonplace host. 
 
 " Why, 'one of the gang,' you know. He has been 
 known to me by reputation for a long time ever since 
 he led the mob of roughs up to the State Convention. 
 The Trybune gave him fits." 
 
 "Describe what you thought he was like? " 
 
 " Well, I thought he was a tough brought up in the 
 streets ; a leader of a ' gang,' who had probably done time 
 himself on the Island ; a petty thief or pickpocket who 
 had gone into politics to keep from State Prison. He 
 
 10
 
 146 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 fought two or three prize fights when he was young, 
 you know, and I supposed from that he was a 
 pretty hard character. That's the way the New York 
 newspapers describe him. I think I saw in a newspaper 
 once that he learned to write his name after he was 
 elected to the Assembly. How near is this right ? It's 
 the general opinion." 
 
 " Yes," replied Dick slowly, a red spot on his cheeks. 
 " I haven't the least doubt that was your idea of his 
 character. He is known by name to every voter in 
 New York, and over a hundred thousand think very 
 much as you do. Only a few know the truth. Do you 
 want to hear it? " 
 
 " Why, yes. I would be glad to." 
 
 " Then listen, for these are the cold facts. He was most 
 carefully educated under the eye of a noble and wise 
 mother. He was a man before he had any knowledge of 
 poverty or crime, except from books. His mother was aVan 
 Rensselaer, the old patroon's only daughter, and Smith's 
 father was in every way her equal. He went to college 
 with my Uncle Harry, and I have heard my uncle say 
 that he was the most hard-working student he ever 
 knew. He took the highest honors ever given. Then 
 he went to a German University for three years, study- 
 ing harder there than in college. When he returned he 
 went into business and finally drifted into politics, quite 
 by accident. Mentally, he is one of the strongest public 
 men we have. For his age he is one of the best Greek 
 scholars of the world. Greek is his hobby, and he has 
 the best private Greek library in this country. He has 
 made collections of the quoted words of scholars whose 
 works are lost and has edited two Greek text-books used 
 in our schools. He was educated especially for the law,
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 147 
 
 and has a very high reputation as counsel, though he 
 does not plead. He has written two law books, both 
 often-quoted authorities, ' Citizenship and Naturaliza- 
 tion ' and ' Corporations.' He understands a- 
 dozen languages, and last fall I heard him make speeches 
 in German, French, Italian, and English. He never 
 fought or saw a prize fight, but he is a member of 
 half-a-dozen learned societies and has several degrees 
 conferred by Universities on famous scholars. He is an 
 amateur athlete, a hard and quick hitter, and he has 
 knocked down many a man in the ward caucuses when 
 some faction attempted to make a row. But no man 
 ever hit him back. He has been a little gay with 
 women, and has spent lots of money on them and on the 
 toys of his district. No one likes fast society and a fast 
 horse better than he does ; no one can make anight with 
 the boys such a memory as he can ; but he is equally 
 fond of quiet and of a book. He plays his political ex- 
 citement and free living against his books and studies, 
 and keeps in sound health by the see-saw. His political 
 enemies and the public generally shut their eyes to all 
 but the one side of his character, because he is not a 
 hypocrite, a liar, or a sneak. If he were all three, he 
 would be Jauded to the skies as a saint in lawn by the 
 very men who now denounce him as a devil, on the 
 same state of facts and without his making the slightest 
 change in his life." 
 
 Grey was genuinely astonished and showed it by his 
 confusion and color. 
 
 " Always copper what you see in a newspaper," Dick 
 adds, somewhat ashamed of his heat. "It is sure to be 
 either a whole lie or part of a lie, according as to 
 whether it concerns an opponent or a friend,"
 
 148 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 " I want to see you alone," Smith says to Mubelle, 
 after dinner. " It's a matter of importance. Won't 
 you come to my room after they go to bed ? " 
 
 " I want to see you," she replies. " I will come." 
 
 It is eleven o'clock when she steps out of the French 
 window that opens from her room onto the veranda and 
 enters the next one. It would have been just as easy to 
 pass through the door connecting the two rooms had 
 she felt inclined to draw the bolt ; but she did not. It 
 represented a principle. 
 
 " I have a letter from Jane which I want you to 
 read." 
 
 He draws an easy-chair for her to the table, and 
 places the lamp where the light will fall comfortably. She 
 reads it through slowly, lays it down, and looks at him. 
 
 " It is more than appears on the surface," he says, 
 slowly. " Ostensibly it is merely a notification that she 
 has sued for a divorce against Greene, having secured 
 sufficient evidence at Long Branch; and an appeal 
 to me to live with her and give her that position before 
 the world to which she thinks she has a right." 
 
 Mabelle looks him straight in the eyes. " Why don't 
 you do it? " 
 
 " I could not do it, if she were the only woman left 
 in the world. I do not hate her or even dislike her, per- 
 sonally ; but she represents a thought that has grown 
 so repugnant to me during the past few weeks that I 
 am afraid to meet her, even casually, lest I should say 
 something harsh. Rather than live in the same house 
 with her for twenty-four hours, I would leave the 
 country." 
 
 " And that thought is what ? " 
 
 " That I have two wives. You may hardly credit it,
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 149 
 
 Mab, bat it lias become a regular nightmare. I cannot 
 offer any excuses for the past, but there is something 
 worth slight consideration in the fact that, until the 
 past two years, I have not really had a wife, in the true 
 meaning of the word one to whom I could go in trouble 
 to receive and in happiness to give. The few months 
 I lived with her she was only an unformed child. I am 
 just learning what wife means. Our close companion- 
 ship for two years, the union of our thoughts and 
 sympathies in a thousand ways, the steady increase of 
 our mutual interdependence, the rapidly growing soli- 
 darity of our interests, make a relationship that is 
 dear to me, and might be to you if you could feel the 
 same way. It is the marital or conjugal sentiment that 
 flows from a blending of two lives, in which each has a 
 separate and individual part that is subordinate to one 
 object. To bring a third person into harmony with such 
 a relationship is as impossible as it is to find a proper 
 place for an extra arm or leg or ear. To have the same 
 relations exist independently and at the same time 
 between one man and two separate women, so that it 
 will exist here between him and one woman, and there 
 between him and another woman, is as impossible as it 
 is to think two separate thoughts at the same instant." 
 
 " Go on," she says, as he stops. " I am interested. I 
 never thought you would care particularly to have a 
 wife." 
 
 " This idea of a wife, this conjugal sentiment, has 
 become very precious to me, Mab ; how precious I only 
 realized when a danger threatened it. Another wife 
 would destroy it utterly and completely. Why should 
 it be destroyed ? At the very best to rebuild it slowly, 
 taking years. It is the strongest force that governs per-
 
 150 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 sonal relations. There is nothing of equal value to take 
 its place, and its growth in any event is exceedingly 
 slow. Jane, in eveiy form and shape that any thought of 
 her can enter my mind, represents the destruction of the 
 most powerful sentiment I ever felt, or ever can feel ; 
 the source of the most perfect happiness I ever enjoyed, 
 and the fountain-head from which all other pleasures 
 now flow. For rude illustrations, do I now care for a 
 rare book or MS. unless you prize it ? Am I happy in 
 my boat unless you enjoy it with me ? Has my horse 
 any attractions unless you are also proud of him ? Do I 
 not enjoy a chat or argument, a play or song, most 
 keenly when I can catch your eye now and then to 
 telegraph the way this or that point strikes you or me ? 
 Does not a look, a glance, without words, carry your 
 thoughts to me ? Is it necessary half the time for you to 
 speak for me to know your thought, if we are alone ? Is 
 there or has there ever been another woman of whom I 
 could say this ? Are we not becoming one, without 
 losing personal identity ? 
 
 "I mean from my standpoint, of course. It goes 
 without saying that you can never overcome the feel- 
 ings of repugnance engendered by those first four years. 
 I am selfish, naturally. 
 
 " But this is the situation ; and here is Jane's letter. 
 To make the slightest compromise with her would be 
 complete and utter mental ruin, without one compensat- 
 ing advantage for her or myself. I should hate her 
 and myself with such deadly hatred for ever after 
 that I should kill both of us." 
 
 She sat and listened to his matter-of-fact talk without 
 understanding the pleasure his words gave her. She 
 objected to his " love." He had " loved " so many other
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 151 
 
 women that she would have hated herself if she had 
 inspired in him any feeling of that kind. But this 
 was honor, respect, reverence the three sweetest things 
 that can be given to a woman. If it were love, 
 Jupiter's daughter was not honored by it. The elder 
 Venus, the motherless child of Uranus, blessed it, not 
 the Venus Pandemos. 
 
 " What is behind it, Billy ? " 
 
 " She has put her application for divorce from Greene 
 into the hands of the bitterest enemy I have in the world, 
 that fellow Stryker, whom I defeated and threw out of 
 the general committee. He will do anything and go to 
 any expense to injure me. He is deep and clever and 
 without principle. She says that Mrs. Stryker his 
 mother is the 'best friend she ever made ; a noble 
 woman,' you will notice, and she is going to Bar Harbor 
 with their party. The sentence that she will represent 
 me in the yachting party to which I was invited, is the 
 key. That was Stryker's idea, not hers. She is com- 
 pletely under his influence, and he will play her for all 
 she is worth to him. I can see his game." 
 
 " What will it be ? How can he injure you through 
 her?" 
 
 " When I refuse to live with her, he will bring an ac- 
 tion for restoration of conjugal rights." 
 
 " You need not live with her unless you like. Your 
 support is all she may lawfully ask for." 
 
 " That is true in this state. There are states where 
 she can demand more, and where such a suit would lie. 
 But an action may be brought in this state upon any 
 allegation. You can get a footing in a court upon an 
 aflidavit that you own the sun and that I owe you $250 for 
 using its light. His case will be thrown out when issue
 
 152 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 is joined, but that result will never be known to the 
 public. It will not interest any one, and the fact will 
 not be published. The action is brought merely to drive 
 in a judicial peg on which to hang columns of news- 
 paper interviews and stories. Every possible trick and 
 device will then be used to blacken my character. A 
 portrait of the ' deserted wife ' will appear in the papers, 
 and your portrait as that of ' the siren ' tempting me, 
 with columns of lies concerning my life. You will 
 read it and come to me asking who that scoundrel is, 
 and if I know him. I don't think I ever concealed a 
 wrong action or even a wrong thought from you ; you 
 know my very worst side " 
 
 " But you have concealed the better, and compelled 
 me to find it out." It is a reproach. 
 " even better than I do, for I forget more easily." 
 He blushes at her interruption. " But even you will 
 not recognize the description as that of any man you 
 know." 
 
 " What will she gain by it ? " 
 
 " Nothing. She will not understand what she is doing. 
 She will be led on step by step, deceived, cajoled, and 
 then thrown out. 
 
 " Is there no possible way to save her ? " 
 
 " I am afraid not." 
 
 How true she rings when any touchstone is applied, 
 he thinks, as his eyes rest on her with an admiration it 
 is perhaps as well she did not see. 
 
 " She says : 'It is as you told me concerning the 
 Indiana divorce. It is merely a piece of waste paper. 
 You cannot let that come between us, for it is illegal.' 
 So you told her about that ? " 
 
 " Yes, at Watertown. You can see her purpose still
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 153 
 
 more clearly from that sentence. She has had a talk 
 with Stryker about it not in relation to her divorce 
 from Greene, for the divorce is not affected by it in any 
 way, but to see how it affects her contemplated suit 
 against me." 
 
 " And you want to know what to do ? " 
 
 " Yes. I am gravelled." 
 
 " Our marriage is really a thing of the past and need 
 not enter into the consideration. She would merely re- 
 quire you to send your niece away, and have another 
 guardian appointed. That is not much. To prefer me, 
 as I am and as we are, is not a wise choice, Billy. You 
 give up too much and get nothing. Be sure of your 
 mind." 
 
 " That means you can help me. My mind is made up. 
 So long as I can keep you as my companion and friend 
 whether as husband and wife, or as uncle and niece 
 I am ready and willing to sacrifice anything that stands 
 in the way, and I shall never regret it while I live." 
 
 ft Do 3 r ou know, now, Billy, why you have sacrificed 
 those other women for the past two years ? Was it, 
 do you still think, because you were not tempted? " 
 
 "Yes, I was right enough in that," he replies simply. 
 "But I see now that, once under this conjugal influence, 
 there could be no temptation. I never could be tempted, 
 so it is no merit, when once I had a real wife and I be- 
 gan to live this life of two in one, any more than I could 
 be tempted to go back to my jackets and knickerbockers 
 after wearing a coat and long trousers." 
 
 u And having put them aside, you now put aside your 
 beautiful, lawful wife for me, a slender slip of a girl ? 
 Just for me ? Just to have me by you ? Just to have 
 our lives grow together in one ? For nothing else, only 
 thai ''"
 
 154 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 She insists upon putting the situation in that way. 
 
 There is a glow at her heart, a warmth felt even on 
 her face, that is not merely a gratification of her pride. 
 A happiness strange and delicious such as she had 
 never before imagined could exist, takes possession of her. 
 The slight dream of love with Dick, so quickly over, had 
 not even touched this chord, which seem to fill soul and 
 mind with the sweetest melody. An archer stands be- 
 side the daughter of Uranus as well as beside the daugh- 
 ter of Jupiter, though Mabelle knows it not. 
 
 " Yes," he replies, half sadly. " To win your esteem, 
 to secure your respect, to feel that you did not con- 
 demn me, to have you lay your hand in mine as Frank 
 does, to be friends sharing honor equally and not in dif- 
 ferent measures, to be companions sharing joy and sor- 
 row, pleasure and pain, as two persons with one life, I 
 would do anything that was required. It gives me 
 pleasure to do what opportunity offers, even when I have 
 no hope." 
 
 He is sitting in a rocker, half turned from her, and 
 looking into the empty grate, not at her. There is si- 
 lence for a moment. The next she is on his lap, her 
 face hidden on his breast, her arm around him. His 
 arms close gently around her, and he waits, for he has 
 caught a glimpse of the tears on her cheeks. 
 
 "What is it, my poor Mab?" he asks presently, 
 when he thinks the rain has ceased. " Have I hurt you ? 
 But you come to me for comfort." There is a ring of 
 pride, of delight in his voice that finds an echo in her. 
 
 "To whom else, Billy?" She raises her face, never 
 so lovely as the tears have made it. " Never, never say 
 such words to me again. They hurt me. They are not 
 true, Frank does not honor you, respect you, esteem
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 155 
 
 you more than I do. There is no man living whom I 
 honor so much. I do not feel as you think. All that 
 past, when I was a child, is dead and forgotten. It was 
 another life. This is a new life the woman's life 
 that I have just begun to live. Do not rake up the 
 ashes of that old existence. It is in its grave, and let it 
 pass into nothingness and oblivion. You honor me too 
 much, for I am weak. If you would but give me my 
 just and proper regard, the balance would still be un- 
 equal; but on my side, not yours. I cannot let her 
 have you now, Billy. I cannot." Her face is burning, 
 and she hides it. 
 
 " Is this possible ! Do you mean it, Mab ? " He is 
 astonished, and cannot control his emotion as Hope 
 comes. Tears are in his eyes, as he adds, " Do not say 
 it to please me." 
 
 Fear, Hope's twin sister, is there also. 
 
 " Of course, I mean it." 
 
 She does not raise her head. He does not understand 
 the surrender of which even she is not fully conscious 
 and does not mean so much by his question as she 
 does by the answer. 
 
 " Do you not see," she continues, " how hard it is for 
 me to say this ? I ought to be willing to give you to 
 Jane ; but I cannot now. I do not want to leave you, 
 if I can help it, and I will fight, if necessary, to keep 
 by your side." 
 
 " Thanks unto Thee, Zeus-pitar, he murmurs. " Mab, 
 look up at me! I want to see your face. Never 
 have I been so happy before. This is the sweetest 
 moment of my life. Can you not share it just a little 
 with me?" 
 
 But she will not look into his face, or lift the lids that
 
 156 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 veil her eyes. They hide her secret. " I do share it 
 with you," she whispers, shyly. 
 
 " I feel li|j;e going to the top of Storm King and 
 building a big bonfire. What a birthday gift I have re- 
 ceived from you ! Is it really true or am I dreaming?" 
 
 " It is getting very late," she says, irrelevantly. She 
 has lost her self-possession and she is afraid. 
 
 " And you are tired, and have something to tell me ? 
 What is it ? ?: 
 
 " Let us finish with Jane first. I think I can conquer 
 her. All I want to know is that you do not care for her 
 or want her. I could have sent her flying the first time 
 I met her if I had known you did not wish to keep her." 
 
 " To know that she has no claim on me or I on her, 
 to bid her good-bye forever, would lift the heaviest load 
 from my shoulders that they ever bore, with the excep- 
 tion of the one you have this moment lifted." 
 
 " Then bid her good-bye now." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " That she will never be more your wife than she is at 
 the present moment." 
 
 " You do not speak with your customary lucidity 
 and precision, most excellent Diotima. You deal in 
 riddles and dark sayings, like the wise Latona." 
 
 " Never mind. I can't tell you now what I shall do 
 Leave her to me in perfect confidence. She shall not 
 have you not one kiss. But write her a kind reply to- 
 morrow. Explain your position, the necessity that action 
 should not be hasty, that I am your niece ; but do not 
 be decided. Leave the question open for negotiation. I 
 must have time, and she must not be driven into active 
 measures until I am ready to meet her and armed in 
 mail. Now for my news. I had a letter from Fanny to-
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 157 
 
 day, saying that Jane was going to Bar Harbor and on 
 a yacht cruise ; that she did not like Jane's new friends, 
 and would not go with her ; and that if we had no guests, 
 it would give her the greatest possible pleasure to come 
 here for two or three days, as she would be very lonesome 
 all by herself. I like her. Shall I ask her to come ? " 
 
 " Certainly. You are queen regnant. Frank is coining 
 next week, but that is all right. I think he will bring 
 her pardon from the Governor. He is in Albany, now, 
 trying to get it." 
 
 " Can the Governor pardon before conviction." 
 
 " Yes. What is an amnesty ? " 
 
 " What are the chances ? " 
 
 " Excellent. I have brought strong pressure upon the 
 Governor to consider the case carefully on its merits. 
 He is a lawyer, and that is all that is needed. The 
 power is given him in order to exercise clemency to the 
 guilty, as well as to pardon the innocent." 
 
 " I shall sleep happier for that. Let us hope he brings 
 the pardon with him. But before I go, Billy, I want to 
 ask you for $2000 for a special purpose. Can you let 
 me have it conveniently ? " 
 
 " Certainly. It is your own money, and you are old 
 enough and wise enough to spend it without any 
 interference from me. You need riot wait till you are 
 twenty-one before drawing on me at your pleasure. But 
 I thought you had a fat balance in the bank." 
 
 " It is getting down low, and I may need a large 
 sum, suddenly." 
 
 " You are sure it is wise expenditure ? You cannot 
 trust me with your intention ?" he says, a little wist- 
 fully. 
 
 " It's a little speculation, Billy, by which I hope to get
 
 158 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 a happiness I have never had. To tell you now would 
 rob me of the pleasure of surprising you with something 
 I know you will like. I am spending it all for myself, 
 selfishly, which is proof that it is well and wisely spent.'' 
 
 " I don't believe you," he replies. " You are going to 
 waste it on me, and then tell me that husband and wife 
 are one." 
 
 " Well ? " She smiles right into his eyes. " Would 
 it be such a dreadful thing to say to you if it were 
 true ? But, really, Billy, true as true, hopimaydiftisnt, 
 this is all to get something for myself alone, something 
 which will make me a very happy woman to get and a 
 very unhappy woman to lose. But I am not going to tell 
 you any more until I succeed or fail. Now I am going to 
 kiss you though it is rather an infliction for you and 
 bid you good night." 
 
 An infliction ! He is afraid to speak lest he should 
 frighten her and lose this delicious sweethearting. 
 
 He follows her to the window. She turns and gives 
 him both her hands. 
 
 "Remember, the past is dead and to be forgotten. 
 This is our new life." She looks at him, but some of 
 the old frankness is gone. There is a new shyness that 
 sits well on' her. 
 
 He holds her hands. " I do not deserve such hap- 
 piness as you have given me, but I will try to." 
 
 " You deserve all and more than I can give you. 
 Have more confidence and, please let me go, Billy." 
 There had been the faintest motion of drawing her to 
 him. 
 
 He releases her hands, which he has not held tightly, 
 and she passes through the window, but turns back 
 holding the panels so that only her face may be inside.
 
 IT IS THE LAW.' 159 
 
 " Go right to bed. Remember that we must start by 
 eight o'clock this morning to take Mrs. Hart to the 
 train. Good night, again." 
 
 But he does not go to bed. He sits for an hour, 
 dreaming. How Mabelle can get rid of Jane puzzles 
 him. He knows that the money is not to buy her off. 
 He would not do that, if it only cost one penny ; and 
 Mabelle certainly would not. Right is right to men like 
 him, and he goes over each phase of the situation and 
 the law bearing on it. " She must have some woman's 
 way of getting at it," he says aloud, " for certainly it is 
 the law."
 
 160 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Lord will root up the house of the proud ; 
 But he will establish the border of the widow. 
 
 Prov. xv. 15. 
 
 IT is three weeks later. Frank has come and gone, a 
 full and free pardon has been granted Fanny, and she 
 and Mabelle are on the veranda, alone, having " a good 
 talk." 
 
 " It has been shameful, disgraceful, dear, the way you, 
 a married woman, have been flirting with that man dur- 
 ing the past week. Not that being married really 
 makes any difference, but it did make a great difference 
 some years ago, and we still say it through force of 
 habit." 
 
 Fanny colors beautifully. "I haven't. You are not 
 fair." 
 
 " Then you are in earnest ? He is ' all broke up,' as 
 Billy would say. He would have let work and every- 
 thing else go to the dogs if I had said fe stay.' Never 
 mind ; he will be back again by October, and you and 
 he shall have one another all to yourselves." 
 
 " I will have to go back before then." The tone is 
 full of regret. 
 
 " You will go back to Tipton about October 15, and 
 not one day before. When you go, your name will be 
 Brooks. Have you settled upon the date of your mar- 
 riage ? "
 
 IT 18 THE LAW. 161 
 
 " That's nonsense. You know there's nothing of the 
 kind been thought of." 
 
 " My dear, don't run away from the truth. There's 
 nothing so dangerous as these first loves especially 
 with women. Now, Frank was yours. He has been 
 digging away so hard at his work since then that he has 
 never had another. He told me so last year. When 
 you meet again, you cannot help but rush into one 
 another's arms. You don't intend to, but the mischief 
 is done before you know it. If each of you had married 
 again, it would be much the same the first week. But, 
 as he never had another love, the first impulse contin- 
 ues. You must marry him,," 
 
 " But he may not want to marry me." Her face is 
 crimson. " You forget, Mabelle, that I cannot re- 
 marry with a husband living ; I am a married woman, 
 the law says, but I have no husband with whom I may 
 lawfully live. I am a married woman and sentenced to 
 celibacy." 
 
 " My dear, there never was a law that could not be 
 circumvented, and you may trust Frank and Billy to 
 settle all that without your worrying." 
 
 " I should not feel it right to marry again while Mr. 
 Robinson is alive." 
 
 " Did you love him, dear ? " 
 
 " No, I married him for a home. I never liked him. 
 But Jane insisted, and everybody was on his side, and I 
 was worn out with work. There was no one else to marry. 
 In the country, women do not have the same chances they 
 have in the city. There are only two or three, at the 
 most, they can marry, and it is one of them or nobody." 
 
 " Did he treat you well ? " 
 
 " He was kind, according to his lights. But his will
 
 162 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 was law. I was of less consequence than his dog, for I 
 had to obey and the dog sometimes didn't. From the 
 day I was married until the divorce, I never had one 
 penny to spend for myself. I had to keep an account of 
 every cent he handed me, and of what was done with it. 
 I could only buy what he told me to buy. I had to 
 explain what I wanted the money for, before I received 
 it, and to return any overplus. I could not buy myself 
 a yard of tape or a card of buttons without explaining 
 beforehand why I needed them. And I didn't always 
 get the money. It was frightfully galling, for he took 
 my own money too, the money I earned teaching music. 
 He is very well off. He saves over -13,000 a year." 
 
 " Why, that was slavery ; bondage ! " 
 
 " It was .what all wives have to submit to where I 
 lived. I was no better than they." 
 
 " How could you be reconciled to him, or dream of 
 going back to such misery ? " 
 
 " Because, dear, it vindicated my honor. His divorce 
 had put a stain on me that was killing me. No one spoke 
 to me. I was put out of the congregation. When my 
 innocence was shown, every one said it was my duty to 
 re-marry him, to prove that I was really innocent." 
 
 " Thank goodness, you are free at last from those 
 narrow-brained beasts of the field! I loathe the ' honest 
 countryman,' and shiver when I meet one on the road. 
 Billy says, and I believe him, that there never yet was 
 one who was not a thief at heart, a brute by choice ; that 
 honest men and decent men are made by the training of 
 cities and towns ; and there's truth in his argument. The 
 dwellers with the cave bears were brutes, thieves, mur- 
 derers. The first small community was a step forward, 
 for honesty and morality were born. The more complex
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 163 
 
 the interests of the community, the stronger the hon- 
 esty, the higher the morality. The highest honesty and 
 morality can only be found in the most complex com- 
 munities the cities. The lower forms are in the 'coun- 
 try deestricts.' Every scamp in our cities was educated 
 in villainy in some little village, and finding his local 
 field too narrow, emigrated. Rich or poor, inside or 
 outside the law, every one started in his career in 
 a country village and came to the city because city 
 people are more innocent, more honest, more moral, 
 and more easily duped than country people.* Get 
 Billy started on that subject, some time. It will amuse 
 you, for he has the pedigree of our scamps in New York 
 at his fingers' ends." 
 
 " Are you not too hard on the countryman. I have 
 known some nice men in the country." 
 
 " Did you ever meet any like Billy or Frank or Mr. 
 Hart or Dick Jones ? Mr. Hart is a fair sample of hus- 
 bands educated in the city. His salary is $2,500 per year. 
 He hands over 2,200 to his wife and keeps $300. She 
 has never had to ask him for a cent since they were 
 married. She rules the house as he rules his department. 
 He no more dreams of interference with her plans or ex- 
 penditures than she does with his. Many men treat their 
 wives differently, but it is because they have the country 
 training and the country instinct of brutality. What 
 makes Billy or Frank any different from Robinson ? 
 Their city training and nothing else. The country 
 training cannot make a gentleman. The best it can do 
 is to make a clodhopper and a brute. Your k nice' men 
 were made ' nice ' by a touch of city training." 
 
 * A better illustration would be our courtesans. Not one in a thousand 
 is city born and city bred. By and large, all vile women in the cities 
 come from the country.
 
 164 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 Fanny smiles at her heat. " Did you ever meet a 
 real countryman and study him?" she asks. 
 
 " Yes I did. There was one here the week before you 
 came. He pretended to be a New Yorker, but the pre- 
 tence would not deceive a child. If ever the word scamp 
 was written on a man's face it was on his. Wait a mo- 
 ment, I have a photograph of him which his wife showed 
 me, just as they were going, and I kept it accidentally." 
 
 She steps into her room and returns in less than a 
 minute. 
 
 "Look at that face. ,1 had a better view of him, be- 
 cause his whiskers were shaved off when he was here." 
 
 Fanny takes the photograph, glances at it, and ex- 
 claims, " Why, this is Robert ! " 
 
 "Do you know him? " Mabelle asks in astonishment. 
 
 " Why, certainly ! It is Jane's husband, Robert 
 Greene." 
 
 She turns the photograph over and shows the print- 
 ing on the back, "Richard Courtright, photographer, 
 Watertown, N. Y." 
 
 " I remember when he went to Watertown and had a 
 dozen made. It was in June, last summer. He gave 
 me one." 
 
 There is no chance that it could be somebody who 
 looks like him ? " 
 
 " I could not be mistaken. But did you say he was 
 here with his wife ? " 
 
 Mabelle does not answer. She walks rapidly around 
 the veranda to where her husband is lying in a ham- 
 mock, half asleep. 
 
 He opens his eyes. 
 
 "Look at this photograph." Her hand trembles. 
 
 He looks at it closely, and starts up. " Where did 
 you get it ? It's that fellow Greene."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 165 
 
 " Study it." 
 
 He does. A puzzled look comes over his face. " I 
 have seen him somewhere," he says. " The eyes are 
 familiar." 
 
 "'I know that I have seen his eyes somewhere." 
 She merely repeats his own words to her concerning 
 Grey. 
 
 " By Herakles, but I believe you are right. Did you 
 notice the ring on the first finger of the left hand, the 
 same as Grey's ? How did you get it ? " 
 
 "Helen showed it to me as the photograph of her 
 husband, Robert Grey, before he sacrificed his whis- 
 kers. Fanny has recognized it as one which Jane's 
 husband, Robert Greene, had taken in Watertown, last 
 June. Look at the imprint." 
 
 He does, and goes back with her to Fanny. 
 
 " Fanny, won't you tell Billy all about Jane meeting 
 her husband at Long Branch, and describe the woman ? " 
 
 While Fanny is doing it, Mabelle goes downstairs. 
 When she returns, Smith is cross-questioning the wit- 
 ness. 
 
 "Was this the woman?" Mabelle asks, showing a 
 photograph of Helen Brown. 
 
 " Yes. What does it all mean ? " 
 
 ' That Robert Greene is a bigamist. He has married 
 a friend of ours. Damn his impudence ! " Smith cries 
 in sudden passion. " To think that he was here for a 
 week. His cheek is monumental. I say, boy ! What's 
 his name? Peter, saddle the mare immediately. Give 
 her the plain bridle. He put the No. 6 curb on that 
 cow the last time he saddled her." 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " 
 
 " Judge Barnes of the Supreme Court, is at the hotel.
 
 166 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 I am going to him to get a warrant for Greene's arrest. 
 I will then go to the village and telegraph to the sheriff 
 of Green Co. how appropriate the names are to grab 
 him. He is at the Kaaterskill, is he not? " 
 
 " Yes ; but will a Supreme Court judge interfere in 
 such a case ? " 
 
 " My dear child, six years ago a man * living in the city 
 of New York said that a man f living in Ohio was a liar ; 
 and his assertion was the simple truth. The man was 
 the worst liar known in history. He had twice been 
 convicted of perjury, by a committee of his own party 
 and his intimate friends in Congress. Now, to call a man 
 a liar, whether he is or not, is conduct calculated to pro- 
 voke a breach of the peace ; but there was not the slight- 
 est reason for supposing that any breach of the peace 
 would or could take place between two men living 500 
 miles apart, and if it should happen it would be merely 
 a case for a $5 fine. Yet Chief Justice Noah Davis not 
 only issued a warrant for that man's arrest, but he opened 
 a court as a police-magistrate * * * * $, There 
 was no other charge or pretence of charge than that 
 one man had called another man a liar. If the chief 
 
 X 
 
 * Kenward Philp. 
 
 t James A. Garfield. 
 
 t The remainder of Mr. Smith's sentence was too libellous for publi- 
 cation. 
 
 The Morey letter was written by Garfield and given by the receiver to 
 Samuel J. Tilden. It was a political trap, for a different occasion, into 
 which Garfield fell. It was not necessary to use it at that time, and it 
 was saved by Mr. Tilden for a future emergency. In June, 1880, at a 
 consultation at Mr. Tilden's house, he showed this letter when one of 
 the visitors insisted that Garfield would be nominated. When the 
 visitors left, and Mr. Tilden gathered up the papers to put them back 
 into his safe, he did not notice that this letter was not in its envelope. 
 The day the news came that Garfield had been nominated, there was
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 167 
 
 justice of the Supreme Court can interfere in a petty 
 police-court case, a subordinate justice can and will 
 interfere in a case of felony where such grave issues 
 
 are involved or I'll know the reason why. Bring 
 
 her here, Peter. Good-bye. Don't wait dinner for 
 me." 
 
 Smith returned in time for dinner. " They left the 
 Kaaterskill last night for Saratoga," he explains. " I 
 have sent the warrant by special messenger to Inspector 
 Brynes with a letter from Judge Barnes asking him to 
 send detectives after them, and have enclosed a check for 
 
 the worse storm ever known at Grey stone, when it could not be found. 
 Mr. Tilden's intention had been to print it the next day after the 
 nomination, and prove its genuineness, "if the Lord delivers our 
 enemies into our hands by making such a nomination," he had 
 said in June. The purloiner waited until two weeks before the 
 election, and then offered the Republicans a chance to buy hjin 
 off, but they were not spending money in that way. They were 
 shrewd enough to know that its publication at that late date would 
 be of the greatest advantage to them. He then took it to the Demo- 
 cratic managers. They were as shrewd as the Republicans. They 
 knew that it was against Mr. Tilden's wishes to touch it then. So did 
 every Democratic editor in New York, for they had been promptly 
 advised about it the day it was brought out. Mr. Dana kept it for 24 
 hours, until he could consult witli Mr. Tilden ; but the others, who 
 had been instructed, rejected it peremptorily. Its publication a few 
 days before election would have been a colossal blunder. When it ap- 
 peared in a moribund penny paper without circulation or influence the 
 only newspaper that would touch it it injured only the Democrats. 
 Tilden, who had the envelope, refused to be brought into the contro- 
 ersy. There was a reason connected with his possession of it requiring 
 that the matter should be handled in his own way. There was no 
 time before election day for him to prove its authenticity without violat- 
 ing a promise he had made. Those who held it were left to their own 
 resources by the Democrats. Philp called Garfield a liar. Davis, 
 Bliss, and the others jumped oil him, and, arresting him foi this lan- 
 guage, it was sent out to the country that he had been arrested for 
 " forging" the letter. This tided their chief over the election, and the 
 case was then dropped.
 
 168 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 their expenses. I thought it best not to have him arrest- 
 ed until he returns to New York, unless they attempt to 
 leave the state. I remembered that she was to spend 
 a week home with her mother, and he will go back with 
 her." 
 
 Dick Jones returned with him. He had been in the 
 position of an ass between two bundles of hay ever since 
 the night after the Fourth. He had had no chance to 
 exchange one word in private with Mabelle, and beyond 
 a brief paragraph in a letter from her to Mrs. Carter, 
 saying that she had postponed her trip to Chicago, he 
 understood nothing of any change in her feelings, and 
 assumed that it had been a necessity for her to remain in 
 New York. 
 
 His aunt and he had become open lovers without 
 consciously admitting the fact to themselves. If they 
 had, they tacitly agreed not to let it be known to one 
 another that such thoughts had come. There was no 
 lack of opportunity, and none was unimproved, at 
 Brookside for embraces, kisses, and caresses. These grow 
 by what they feed upon. They are very sweet, and 
 both were willing to gather the rosebuds while they 
 could. Mrs. Carter was perfectly content ; but Dick 
 was not, when left to himself only when her arms were 
 around him and she was kissing and petting her " boy," 
 her " son," her " delight," as she called him. 
 
 Between Helen and Mabelle if driven to a choice 
 Dick would instantly have chosen Helen. She was 
 Jupiter's daughter by Leda, his aunt because he was the 
 child of Jupiter's daughter, Venus ; and family ties are 
 strong. Blood is thicker than water. But he wanted 
 Mabelle. He had never kissed her lips, he had never 
 clasped her in his arms, and he was the more strongly
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 169 
 
 attracted for that very reason. It was a different senti- 
 ment that swayed him. 
 
 He admired Mabelle beyond measure. He considered 
 her figure perfect ; her form divine and he was nearer 
 the truth than her own conception of herself. Even now 
 she was a model of that Asiatic type of beauty which bars 
 unnecessary flesh, and in another year she would be the 
 perfect Greek idea. But it was not her perfectly 
 rounded arm, or her transparent white satin skin that 
 drew him to her. It was, in a word, he would say, 
 " her brains ; " but he would be wrong. Her brains were 
 not phenomenal. She was absolutely free from super- 
 stition, from cant, from hypocrisy and she was the only 
 woman he had ever met who was. This was the 
 charm, and he did not know it. 
 
 Mabelle was an honest woman. She had faults ; she 
 had prejudices regarding persons and things. But all 
 these were as nothing to the virtue that kept her intel- 
 lect free to test all abstract statements concerning right 
 and wrong by the laws of pure reason, that kept her 
 from becoming the slave of Faith, alias Credulity, alias 
 Idiocy. 
 
 She had never had a lover until Dick came, yet she 
 had studied Love and thoroughly understood the origin 
 and scope of this master-passion of the human race. A 
 free mind does this quickly in ten minutes when the 
 way is pointed out. She knew that it was the conserv- 
 ator and the preserver of mankind, the motive power of 
 all progress and all advancement, without which the 
 wise who could see no reason for chasing a phantom 
 would follow the Preacher and turn from this " delusion 
 of living where laughter is mad and pleasure is vain, 
 and praise the dead which arc dead more than the living
 
 170 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 which are yet alive : or esteem as better than both he 
 that hath never been." She knew that its force was 
 exerted in a thousand ways through ideas, where it was 
 but once exerted through individuals. She knew that 
 all its incomplete manifestations in love of self, or sex, 
 or country, .or humanity, were but a blind and mis- 
 guided striving after that love of Truth mistakenly 
 called love of God which alone brings perfect rest 
 and content. And yet she wished for a lover, or rather 
 the wish awoke to conciousness when she saw one 
 coming. It was idle, she knew, to seek for pleasure in 
 one, for when the wish was granted that was the end. 
 It would not be what she wanted. The fairy story of 
 the prince who came in the night, warning his wife 
 never to light a lamp and look at him, she understood ; 
 and she knew why the prince vanished forever when 
 his wife disobeyed and looked upon him. Love dies 
 with the kiss. 
 
 It was true that those who look on Love must lose 
 him, yet all have found him fair ; and she was not to be 
 greatly blamed for willingness to gratify her curiosity. 
 She might have married Dick in Illinois and lived with 
 him in New York for a few months, but for what had 
 happened. It would have been lawful, and " without 
 law there is no sin." She was free by the law to have 
 two husbands, and to live with them alternately if she 
 liked as free as her husband was to have two wives 
 and to live with one or both, as he would. 
 
 She did not admire the law. But it had been forced 
 upon the state of New York by the religious sentiment 
 which considered polygamy and polyandry preferable 
 to divorce. Who could object to her for taking the 
 freedom which the law and religion granted to her?
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 171 
 
 Certainly not those who had insisted upon giving it to 
 her, by refusing divorce and permitting re-marriage. 
 
 All around her were men living with two or more 
 lawful wives; wives living with two or more lawful 
 husbands. She had believed Smith to be living in poly- 
 gamy, or worse, if there be any worse, with other women. 
 The conjugal sentiment which he had described as uncon- 
 ciously influencing his actions had been stronger in her 
 than in him nothing can prevent its growth but it 
 had been blistered and burned daily and hourly by the 
 thought of those " others," until it had been in a state 
 of inflammation that made welcome any suggestion for 
 relief from the bitter pain. The thought of Dick's lof e 
 was refreshing to her bruised mind, not because she loved 
 him, but because it seemed true and not false to its 
 object her. Marriage was its corollary. There was 
 no one to object to her giving herself temporarily to him, 
 as a wife, if he desired it. Why should she not ? Why 
 should any proper and lawful pleasure be denied? 
 
 In everything except the one, she had found in Smith 
 all that her heart craved. He was keen of intellect, 
 kind of heart, honest in word and deed, sympathetic, 
 worldly-wise. But for this black cloud between them 
 she would have been as happy in her husband as one 
 can be who has nothing left to desire which is saying 
 little. 
 
 When Smith came to her with the story of lu's meet- 
 ing Jane, it gave her both pain and pleasure, for she did 
 not quite comprehend the motive that impelled him to 
 tell her ; but when a casual word from him had reveal- 
 ed the fact that her self-torture during the preceding 
 two years had been all unnecessary ; that the black cloud 
 had been solely in her imagination, her whole heart
 
 172 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 went out to him in a pent-up flood of affection that 
 almost frightened her when she realized it. Dick, and 
 all thought of Dick's love so far as it gave her any satis- 
 faction, had been washed out by her husband's words at 
 the Casino. 
 
 It took her days to realize that they were true ; that 
 her pain had been self-inflicted. As she looked back 
 upon the two years, recalling a thousand trifling things 
 that corroborated him in the strongest way and should 
 have revealed the truth, she grew remorseful and angry 
 with herself that her prejudice, when a child, should 
 have blinded her as a woman and a wife, or required so 
 much evidence to remove it. 
 
 This feeling concerned the past alone. Jane was a 
 different .matter. The moment she knew that her hus- 
 band had been true and faithful to her from the time 
 she had taken charge of their home and assumed her 
 place in the world as his wife, the bitterest hatred and 
 jealousy of Jane had filled her heart. She could not 
 bring herself to believe that her husband did not love 
 his first wife. She tortured herself in a thousand ways, 
 recalling even jesting words, when she had been a thin 
 and scraggy school-girl, about plump women. 
 
 It was her jealousy that resolved to put him to the 
 test. It was her jealousy that sustained her in every 
 temptation to reveal the truth, as the evidence was heap- 
 ed upon her that he cared for her alone and nothing for 
 Jane. It was her jealousy that had kept the path open 
 and easy for him to be tempted. It was her jealousy 
 that had kept her from dismissing Dick peremptorily, 
 and made her resolve that he should be her husband if 
 Smith did not pass through the fire unscathed. To 
 hurt Smith, not to please Richard, would she force her
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 173 
 
 husband to share her with another, or give her up en- 
 tirely. 
 
 Her discovery that Dick was clay of the commonest 
 kind ; that he could make love to Mrs. Carter and to her, 
 indifferently, was rather a relief. It certainly gave her 
 no pain, for she had never cared for him. She was asham- 
 ed in her saner moments of her jealousy, and glad to 
 get free from the temptation of carrying out her ill-con- 
 sidered resolution. She welcomed anything that raised 
 Billy above his fellows, and she knew he could not be 
 so weak as Dick had been. He might make love to two 
 women; he could not be in love with both : Dick was. 
 
 Dick's last chance of winning her for a wife pro 
 tempore, or even retaining her for a friend, had been lost 
 forever the morning of her visit to Brookside. Her 
 jealousy had been almost obliterated by her husband's 
 explanation when he received Jane's letter. It was no 
 longer green. It had faded to a pale yellow. 
 
 Dick is resolved to know where he stands with Ma- 
 belle, and when she is to become his wife. Absence has 
 made his heart grow fonder. He is sick of " love," and 
 tired, for the time, of kisses that burn and sting. He 
 longs for the milder uranian heart-play. He is sure of 
 Ids aunt's love. He takes that as a matter of course. 
 His marriage with Mabelle will be secret, ad interim, 
 when " the good man is away, when he goes on a long 
 journey " and his aunt need not know of it, if it pains 
 her, he says to himself. 
 
 While Smith is writing a circumstantial account of 
 the discovery to Mr. Brown, which includes a clear 
 statement of his own marital trouble, Dick finds the 
 opportunity he has been seeking. 
 
 Mabelle smiles at the story of his hopes and fears, for
 
 174 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 she knows how much is true and how much he imagines 
 for the moment to be true. 
 
 " I have lived years, Dick," she says kindly " since I 
 sat on the stone wall and talked to you. I told you then, 
 I think, that I did not love you as you loved me, and 
 since then I have made a discovery that has changed 
 the situation materially." 
 
 " What can change my love for you ? " 
 
 " The fact, Dick, that I have no affection to give you. 
 I will be frank. I thought you were my first lover, and 
 I was grateful to you as every woman should be to her 
 first lover. But I think, I have hope, that some one 
 who is a thousand times dearer to me than you could 
 ever have been, has loved me longer and as faithfully. 
 It is the truth, Dick, and I hope it is not hard." 
 
 It is hard. He does not take it kindly. 
 
 " Then you have been amusing yourself with me." 
 
 " No. Then I had no hope. I was quite as much in 
 earnest as you were." She thinks of Mrs. Carter, as 
 she says it. "I did not deceive you at least I tried 
 not to. I did not know then that I cared for any one 
 else. It was a surprise and a revelation when I discov- 
 ered it. Don't you know that you really love Nellie, 
 and only imagine that you love me ? " 
 
 The suddenness of the question confuses him. He 
 stammers, and then says, " I love my aunt very dearly, 
 of course ; but " 
 
 " Stop," she interrupts gently, " don't say ' but.' Do 
 not qualify it. You know that you love her and no one 
 else. If you do not know it, read your own heart and 
 you will learn it. Do not be ashamed to own your mis- 
 take to me as I have owned mine to you. It will not 
 give me pain, but pleasure to know it. She has. loved
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 175 
 
 you for ^ears. As a matter of duty if your inclina- 
 tions did not point that way you should be kind to 
 her and not give her pain. How much more untrue 
 you would be when your heart points to her untrue to 
 her and to yourself ! " 
 
 " I will not deny that I love my aunt," he replies, 
 "but it is not as I love you. I love her as I have loved 
 her all my life." 
 
 " Have you not made the discovery lately that the 
 love you speak of is very precious ? " 
 
 " How ? T don't understand." He stammers, and feels 
 guilty. 
 
 " Did you not feel jealous and angry at Billy's atten- 
 tions to her? Did you not resent the idea that he 
 should marry her ? " 
 
 " Yes, I did," he admits. 
 
 " I understand better than you imagine, how you feel. 
 Would you give her to Billy for a wife, if I were willing 
 to do what I suggested take you for a husband ? 
 Answer truthfully." 
 
 He is silent. 
 
 " Go home, like a good boy. Take your aunt in your 
 arms, and ask her to marry you. She will refuse. Per- 
 sist, and she will consent. Then come to me when you 
 are married and I will kiss you as many times as 
 Billy may kiss her. 
 
 ' None, seeing us cloven in sunder, 
 Will weep or laugh or wonder ; 
 Light love stands clear of thunder, 
 And safe from winds at sea.' 
 
 We have lost nothing and gained much from our little 
 idyl. It will be a pleasant memory of a pleasant hour
 
 176 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 among woods and flowers with not even the recollec- 
 tion of a black ant or tree frog to mar it." 
 
 " And this is my dismissal ? " 
 
 He cannot help a feeling that he is out in the cold, 
 and the door shut in his face. 
 
 " Don't call it that," she says kindly. " It is dismissal 
 when the game is finished, the oil burned out, the play 
 over ; but that is fate. It is the end of all human action. 
 Ours has had a happier ending than if it had dragged 
 out to satiety and disgust." 
 
 " Are you love-making ? May I intrude ? " Smith has. 
 worked off his slight temper in the letter and is at ease 
 with the world. 
 
 " Come here by me, Billy." 
 
 He sits down, gingerly, on the hammock. She leans 
 against him and his ar.m passes around her waist. It is 
 entirely unconscious, but Dick understands. It affords 
 food for reflection for many a day. 
 
 *' I hope I didn't disturb you," Smith says. " But 
 every one seems to have paired off to-night. Even Gyp 
 has a young man from the hotel with her. Is this ham- 
 mock safe ? " The pressure of his arm shows that he is 
 concerned for her alone. 
 
 " It is one you tested." 
 
 " What were you talking about ? I have interrupted 
 your conversation." 
 
 " No, it had come to an end. We were talking about 
 our first loves. Dick is just coming to a realizing sense 
 of what he came near losing, and so am I. And we 
 were comparing notes. I have promised to kiss him 
 he did not ask me to, but I know he would like to have 
 me as many times as you kiss his sweetheart. I know 
 you would like to."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 177 
 
 " That's the offer of the turkey and the woodchuck. 
 Does it not take a woman, Dick, to put an alternative 
 illogically, so that they will always get the best of one ? 
 Why don't you say turkey to me ? " 
 
 " Well," she says demurely, " Dick may kiss me as 
 many times as his sweetheart kisses you." 
 
 " That's an offer of the woodchuck and the turkey, 
 which I appreciate. But Dick would want more, for 
 one kiss from a woman is worth ten to a woman. I am 
 afraid something has come over you, ma petite, you 
 seem to have lost your love for logic." 
 
 " That's good for a steady diet ; but I think do you 
 know that it needs sweetening with a little dessert 
 the love of man for a woman. It's illogical and it 
 constantly has to begin all over again as one drinks 
 a cup of tea it's new love and new tea but it is 
 always refreshing particularly when poured from the 
 same pot into the same cup. One grows to like a 
 certain brew of one as well as the other." 
 
 " There speaks the heart not the mind of a woman," 
 Smith's voice trembles slightly. " If we were perfect au- 
 tomata, logic would be enough. But we are imperfect 
 afflicted with hearts and you have put the proper 
 compromise between that and the intellect." 
 
 " Could any one put points as she puts them ? " asks 
 Dick. " Here she has been preaching to me that love 
 dies with the kiss, and this is the very opposite senti- 
 ment, yet the two statements don't conflict, as she words 
 them. It's sophistry that even old what was his 
 name ? " 
 
 " Sophocles ? " Smith suggests, with an innocence that 
 makes Mabelle laugh. 
 
 " that even old Sophocles would turn green with 
 
 12
 
 178 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 envy at listening to. Nellie and I were talking about 
 love the other night, and we agreed that it was a pas- 
 sion, like anger or disgust, without reason, or cause, or 
 philosophy." 
 
 " Ah ! it is she whom I am to kiss. I congratulate 
 you, Dick. But you are both wrong. Have you not 
 4 soaked with old Socrates ? ' Must I quote Plato to 
 you ? Philosophy is love of wisdom. No god or wise 
 man desires wisdom, for he has it. The ignorant do 
 not, because ignorance is the lack of perception or 
 knowledge of the value of wisdom. Whoever knows its 
 value is wise. Only those love wisdom who are interme- 
 diate neither wise nor ignorant. Wisdom is the most 
 beautiful child of the gods, and Love, the child of Pover- 
 ty by Plenty, the constant companion of Want, is 
 neither god nor man, but intermediate, always seeking 
 wisdom to find the beauty that he lacks himself, for he 
 is old and wrinkled and withered, as befits one whose 
 mother is Poverty and whose companion is Want. Love 
 is the spiritual head of all intermediates, in other words 
 of philosophers, and consequently of all philosophy." 
 
 " You can swim," Dick says ; " I can't. That's over 
 my head. I am willing to take a great deal for granted 
 without argument. In logic and law I am like the four 
 fish of different colors we read about in the Arabian 
 K. of L. If you say it is logic, I say it is logic. If you 
 say it is the law, I say it is the law"
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 179 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, 
 But the end thereof are the ways of death. 
 
 Prov. xiv, 12. 
 
 SMITH in his letter advised Brown, if he had his 
 daughter's address, to telegraph to her saying that her 
 mother's health made a sea voyage necessary, and to re- 
 turn immediately, adding, as if the consent were given 
 grudgingly, that she might bring her husband with her 
 for the few days she would be at home. As the detec- 
 tives had been instructed to telegraph the address as 
 soon as discovered, he would be informed of it in a very 
 short time, if he did not have it. 
 
 As it happened, Brown did not have the address and 
 was compelled to wait, receiving a letter from his 
 daughter and the dispatch almost at the same hour. 
 His message was made as if in reply to her letter, and the 
 pair returned to New York immediately ; Robert felici- 
 tating himself with the thought that his rich father-in- 
 law's opposition was breaking down. 
 
 His reception by Brown, though it chilled him to the 
 marrow, did not disturb this belief. Sending his daugh- 
 ter to her mother, Brown invited him into the library, 
 and asked for a description of the trip. This Robert 
 proceeded to give in his best manner, Brown listening 
 in silence, only no\v and then putting in a brief question 
 as the speaker waited I'm- applause. 
 
 According to Brown's instructions, the detective in
 
 180 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 charge of the case permitted Greene to precede him by- 
 ten minutes. When his card was brought to Brown, 
 the latter directed the servant to show him in. 
 
 "This is your prisoner, Mr. Jasper," Brown says, 
 without rising. 
 
 Robert is facing him, his back to the door, and before 
 he can recover from his surprise he has been hand- 
 cuffed. 
 
 "You must really excuse the liberty," Mr. Jasper 
 says, deprecatingly, " but you are so clever and so slip- 
 pery, Mr. Greene, that I must do it." 
 
 Mr. Jasper likes his joke. He is not one of the 
 solemn and earnest detectives of the story books. 
 
 Robert tries to twist the handcuffs off, hurts himself 
 severely, and comes to a realizing sense of the situation. 
 
 " Will you explain this outrage ? " he demands de- 
 fiantly. 
 
 " By virtue of this warrant, Mr. Greene, which is 
 signed by one of the justices of the Supreme Court, you 
 are my prisoner. Will you come with me quietly ? " 
 
 " Certainly I will. Mr. Brown, will you come with 
 me ? I may have to give bail to answer this absurd 
 charge." 
 
 " You scoundrel ! You double-dyed scoundrel ! " ejac- 
 ulates the other, quivering with emotion. " Don't you 
 dare to speak to me, or or I will choke you." 
 
 " Don't you think that you are bringing unnecessary 
 scandal into our family ? " Greene says, coolly. " This 
 charge against me cannot be sustained. I was lawfully 
 in possession of the $600, and haven't had time to dis- 
 charge the errand ; but I have no intention of not doing 
 it, and the only complaint that can be made is breach 
 of trust, wljich is not criminal."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 181 
 
 " Ah ! " the detective says, " so you are wanted on 
 another charge larceny. This is only for bigamy, Mr. 
 Greene." 
 
 " Bigamy ! " He laughs lightly, but flushes. " That 
 is absurd. My lawyer will soon settle that charge." 
 
 Brown looks at him. " I would prefer my daughter 
 dead than the wife of such a vulgar, common-place 
 scoundrel as you are. But alive, since she must live, 
 I prefer her to be married rather than disgraced. Is 
 it true ? Did you or did you not marry a woman two 
 years ago ? " 
 
 " It is perfectly true that I married a woman, but she 
 had a husband living from whom she was not divorced. 
 Our marriage was illegal, and I was perfectly free to 
 marry Nellie. My friend and lawyer, the Hon. William 
 Smith, will settle this charge in two minutes." 
 
 " Without a doubt," Jasper says, dryly. " As he is 
 the man who has had the warrant issued for your arrest, 
 and as it was his first wife whom you married two years 
 ago as soon as I get you to headquarters I will send 
 him a dispatch saying you need his services. Let us 
 hurry, Mr. Greene." 
 
 As the two men left the room, Brown sank into a 
 chair and bowed his head upon his hands. " My Nellie, 
 my darling," he murmured as his emotion mastered him, 
 " would to God that I might die to spare you this dis- 
 grace ! " Then the strong man gave way to bitter grief 
 that is no shame. 
 
 " Papa ! papa, can you forgive me for bringing this 
 sorrow upon you ? Do not drive me away ! " The voice 
 is hardly audible for the sobs that convulse the 
 speaker. 
 
 Nellie is kneeling beside him, her tears flowing fast.
 
 182 IT IS THE LA IF. 
 
 He opens his arms. " My darling child," he says 
 brokenly, " have you ever had reason to doubt my love 
 for you ? Have I ever said a harsh word to you in my 
 life ? Have I ever refused you anything that it was 
 proper and right for you to have ? Do you think that 
 now, when your great sorrow has come, when a black 
 cloud has rolled over your young life, that I shall with- 
 draw the love that has been yours for the past sixteen 
 years ? Nellie, my daughter, you and I must be brave 
 and strong to meet this disgrace, for your mother's sake. 
 It has nearly killed her." 
 
 ' But, papa, is it is it anything wicked ? I should be 
 glad never to see him again. I do not love him or care 
 for him. He is a bad man, and I was very, very wrong 
 to marry him without your consent ; but papa, I have 
 been his wife, these past few weeks ? O, papa, don't 
 tell me that I have not ! " 
 
 Her piteous entreaty pierces him to the heart. " My 
 child, my child, what can I say to you? " 
 
 " But papa, I must be his wife. The court discharged 
 him ! " 
 
 " My child, the court did not know he had another 
 wife living. If he had been "free to marry you, you 
 would be his wife. But he was not, and the court then 
 thought he was. He met his wife when with you at 
 Long Branch and ran away from her." 
 
 She shudders, " But, papa, he told me, last week, 
 that years ago he did not say how many he married 
 a woman who had a husband living from whom she 
 had never been divorced, and that he left her as soon as 
 he found it out. That marriage was illegal and he was 
 perfectly free to marry me." 
 
 " My child, if what he said were true, he had no right
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 183 
 
 to marry you. The woman he married might have 
 twenty living husbands, but he was a married man until 
 his marriage was declared illegal by a court. He had 
 no right alone, by himself, to declare it void ; only a 
 court could do that. A husband has no right to decide 
 whether his wife was free to marry him, to declare she 
 was not, and then to lawfully marry some one else. If 
 he could do that, he could give himself a divorce when- 
 ever he pleased. A marriage must stand till a court 
 decides it to be illegal. Not all courts have power to 
 decide such cases only the higher courts. He lied to 
 you in every sentence. He married that woman know- 
 ing she had a husband living, knowing that she was free 
 to marry him, and knowing his marriage was valid. 
 She had a right to have two husbands, but he had no 
 right to have two wives. She was poor, and he aban- 
 doned her and married you because he supposed you 
 were rich. But he committed bigamy. He had a law- 
 ful wife living." 
 
 She waits a minute. " How can that be ? How 
 could she have two husbands and he only one wife ? " 
 
 " Jane had been deserted by Smith for five years and 
 was free to marry. If Jane had deserted Robert Greene 
 for five years, without his knowing her to be alive, your 
 marriage would be legal. This is the law. But Robert 
 married Jane two years ago, and deserted her only two 
 days before he married you." 
 
 " Oh ! " She is shocked beyond expression. 
 
 " And I, what am I ? " she asks presently, with burn- 
 ing cheeks. " I have been travelling with him, living 
 with him, and I have not been Ids wife, only only O, 
 papa, kill me, hide my shame ! hide my shame ! I cannot 
 live and bear it."
 
 184 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 In granting the warrant, Judge Barnes had attached 
 the affidavits on which it had been issued and had made 
 it returnable before any magistrate. After spending the 
 night at headquarters, Greene was taken in the morning 
 to the Tombs police court. Smith and Brown appeared 
 as complainants, and Justice Duffy put the bail at $2,000- 
 This Greene was unable to obtain, and he was taken 
 inside the jail and committed to the care of the warden. 
 He had less than $20 in his pocket. He had not a friend 
 in all the world to help him. In the middle of the Pa- 
 cific or Southern ocean he would not have been more 
 alone than he was in the swarming Tombs, between 
 Broadway and the Bowery. 
 
 Smith telegraphed to Jane, and proceeded energeti- 
 cally to gather up the necessary proofs for the district 
 attorney and grand jury. Jane gladly became a party to 
 the prosecution, which was entirely in her interests. Her 
 application for divorce from Greene did not in any way 
 affect her claim against Smith. It was no admission 
 that she was not Smith's wife, as she might lawfully be 
 the lawful wife of two or twenty men ; but the prose- 
 cution of Greene for bigamy had an important bearing 
 upon her claim. 
 
 The section of the law under which Smith had re- 
 married permitted the one deserted to marry again. 
 It did not permit the deserter to marry. Both had re- 
 married, and one or the other of the marriages must be 
 invalid, as she looked at it through Stryker's eyes. 
 
 " If Greene is convicted," said Stryker, " then Smith 
 is the deserter, and his marriage with his second wife is 
 invalid in fact it is bigamy ; but we cannot prosecute 
 him for the bigamy because six }'-ears have passed. You 
 become his only lawful wife. If Greene is acquitted,
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 185 
 
 then his marriage to you is invalid, and you have no 
 husband but Smith, and he must acknowledge you as 
 such and give you the place you are entitled to, or we 
 will drive him out of New York. Either way you 
 win." 
 
 The indictment was found promptly, and as it was a 
 jail case, which must be tried within four months, both 
 sides pressed for an immediate trial. Twenty days after 
 his arrest, Greene faced a jury sworn to " well and truly 
 try and true deliverance make." 
 
 There was little for the jury to do ; there was much 
 for the court. Smith had arranged a compact and 
 straightforward case. The facts were presented with 
 out contest. 
 
 The defence was that the marriage between Jane and 
 Greene was invalid, Mrs. Greene having a husband 
 living. It was admitted that she did not know, and 
 had not known for five years that her husband was living ; 
 but she had deserted her husband, Greene's counsel 
 asserted, not her husband her, and she was not entitled 
 to remarry. She was a married woman, having a hus- 
 band living within 2 R. S. 687, 8. 
 
 This was easy to assert, but difficult to prove. Neither 
 Jane nor Smith had been called as witnesses for the pro- 
 secution, and it would have been suicide for the defence 
 to have called either. If Greene swore that Jane de- 
 serted Smith, he might be acquitted on this indictment, 
 if the jury believed him, but only to be rearrested for 
 bigamy in marrying Jane.* He was between the devil 
 and the deep sea. If he had not committed bigamy in 
 marrying Nellie, then he had committed bigamy in mar- 
 
 * Both parties to a bigamous marriage are equally guilty under the 
 Penal Code, provided the first marriage is known. He admitted that 
 he had known of Jane's
 
 186 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 lying Jane. If he had not committed bigamy in marry- 
 ing Jane, he certainly had committed bigamy in marry 
 ing Nellie. He had committed bigamy with one or the 
 other. That was perfectly evident. Greene's cross- 
 examination showed that he and Jane had been intim- 
 ately acquainted from childhood, and that he had learn- 
 ed nothing additional concerning her first marriage 
 between the date of his marriage to her and his marriage 
 to Miss Brown. He acknowledged that for the five 
 years preceding their marriage she had lived within, 
 the township where her first marriage had taken place. 
 Two witnesses for the prosecution had already testified 
 to the same fact. 
 
 He had no witnesses to call, and the defence rested 
 with his testimony. 
 
 The court ruled that Mrs. Smith was free to marry. 
 " Even if she had deserted her husband of which there 
 is no proof she must have returned to her home the 
 home of her childhood and the home her husband pro- 
 vided for her, and it is the husband who absented him- 
 self during the five years preceding the second marriage, 
 which is all we have to look to." [Exception taken.] 
 
 " Nor do I see how it would help the defendant," re- 
 marked the Recorder dryly, " to prove that his wife had 
 no right to marry. He admits that he has been acquaint- 
 ed with her since before her first marriage ; that he was 
 fully acquainted with all the circumstances relating to 
 it ; and if this be true he simply interposes a plea of 
 guilty of bigamy with her." [Exception taken.] 
 
 Greene's counsel had been assigned by the court. He 
 understood but little of the case, and took still less 
 interest in it. His allegation that Mrs. Smith-Greene 
 had deserted her first husband was merely in the nature
 
 IT 18 THE LA W. 1ST 
 
 < f a bluff. He had no other possible defence. He knew 
 that, with Smith and Jane iu court, neither being called 
 upon to testify, there was something kept back by the 
 prosecution but he did not care particularly what it 
 was. Whether his client went to the state prison or not 
 was a matter of indifference. He knew that he was guilty 
 of bigamy in one or the other of the marriages, that he 
 was an uninteresting and commonplace criminal, and 
 he preferred that he should go. Had a swinging fee 
 been in his pocket it would have been a different 
 matter, and Greene might have been acquitted. As it 
 was, he made a technical defence, did all that could 
 be expected of a lawyer working without pay, made 
 an excellent case on which to go to the Supreme Court 
 for a new trial, and with a feeling of satisfaction, heard 
 the jury bring in a verdict of guilty. 
 
 The court imposed a sentence of four years and six 
 months, and the " gay Lothario " from the backwoods of 
 Jefferson Conuty, who had overestimated his knowledge 
 of the law, found that he had to pay the penalty for his 
 ignorance that no man can have two wives in the 
 State of New York unless he goes through the proper 
 routine, and complies with the easy conditions laid down 
 by the Court of Appeals. 
 
 A certified copy of the proceedings in the criminal 
 suit was made a part of Jane's application for divorce, 
 and the latter was immediately granted. This practic- 
 ally added a doom of perpetual celibacy to Greene's 
 sentence. Upon proof of " uniform good conduct " 
 after five years, the defendant in a divorce suit may 
 obtain permission to marry again, if the plaintiff has 
 remarried. But no court will accept time spent in the 
 State prison as " good conduct."
 
 188 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 When Robert Greene is released, in 1890, he will be 
 a married man without a wife. He will never be able 
 during Jane's lifetime to many in this state without 
 committing bigamy again, except by going to Kansas 
 and bringing an action for divorce from Jane. If he 
 can by trick or device lure her into that state, and serve 
 the papers on her while she is on Kansas soil, he may 
 get a divorce that will be valid in this state, for Kansas 
 recognizes as one of the causes sufficient for divorce the 
 fact that the defendant has obtained a divorce against the 
 plaintiff. It is the only state that provides for such 
 cases. 
 
 When Stryker handed Mrs. Smith-Greene her decree, 
 he advised her not to press matters for the present. 
 Smith was a candidate for re-election to the Assembly, 
 certain of nomination. Stryker was a candidate for 
 Congress; and his nomination was very doubtful. If 
 nominated, his defeat was probable ; but he was ambi- 
 tious for the nomination. It would be a good " adverti- 
 sement," and worth the cost. He was looking to the no- 
 mination for the State Senate in 1887. Smith's political 
 influence was not measured by his office, and if it should 
 be actively exerted against him in the Congressional 
 convention, the nomination for Congress would go to 
 another, and with it his hopes the next year for a seat 
 in the State Senate. It was not good politics to quarrel 
 just then with the strongest man of his party in the 
 Senatorial district and the " boss " of one-third of it. 
 
 This he did not explain to Jane. Nor did he explain 
 to her that his intention from the beginning had been 
 to get Smith " on the hip," and then sell her out on con- 
 dition that the latter should assist him in his political 
 schemes.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 189 
 
 Instead of bringing the suit anticipated by Smith, 
 Stryker sent him a friendly letter informing him of 
 Jane's mind and what she required, suggesting, as both 
 were lawyers, that a conference should be held and a 
 full understanding arrived at as to the facts. It was 
 not probable, he added, that there would be any dis- 
 agreement as to the law. It was a most unfortunate 
 entanglement, and if he could use any influence toward 
 a satisfactory adjustment it would give him the greatest 
 pleasure to do so. 
 
 To this Smith replied briefly, accepting the proposi- 
 tion, provided a third party should be added, and that 
 any subsequent legal proceedings should accept the find- 
 ing as agreed upon by the three as a basis of complaint. 
 He submitted six names, all of personal friends of Stry- 
 ker, any one whom would be acceptable to him as the 
 third party. 
 
 Stryker accepted the modification and the first name 
 on the list, that of an ex-judge of the Supreme Court. 
 
 Smith's action was to prevent any attack on the valid- 
 ity of his second marriage by a suit for divorce naming 
 Mabelle as the co-respondent. The conviction of Greene 
 had left on him tlie onus of the desertion, and if he were 
 the deserter he had not been free to remarry. He felt 
 able to repel any assault, but he did not wish the assault 
 made, for he knew it would be a fierce one and take all 
 his strength to meet it. That Mabelle would not for- 
 give such an aspersion, nor him for bringing it upon her, 
 he accepted as a fact. 
 
 Skin for skin, aye, all that he hath, 
 A man will give for his wife; 
 
 and he was willing to fight to the death for Mabelle : 
 to give all that he had, both skin and fortune.
 
 190 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 But the more he brooded over the situation the more 
 discouraged he became. If Mabelle felt toward him as 
 lie felt toward her, there was nothing to fear. But this 
 he considered impossible. She had literally become a 
 part of his life. That he was more to her than a dear 
 friend and relative, he did not even for a moment imag- 
 ine. That she would be willing to make any great 
 sacrifice to retain him for a husband, he did not believe. 
 Her co"nfession that she could not give him up to Jane 
 carried but little weight, although it Avas a great conso- 
 lation, for he believed that it had been in part wrung 
 from her sympathies in a moment when they were excit- 
 ed by his own distress. That she had been married 
 against her will ; that her action on arriving at the age 
 of consent had been to- repudiate the marriage ; that she 
 had merely submitted to force and the inevitable when 
 beaten in her effort to have it annulled ; that she had 
 seized upon Jane's return to practically set the marriage 
 aside ; that all her shy affection for him had budded 
 arid bloomed since, with Jane's return, he had ceased to 
 be her husband and become only her uncle and guardian ; 
 that she would not under any circumstances willingly 
 resume the old relations; that any attempt on his part to 
 do so would result in the death of this new-born affec- 
 tion so precious to him ; and that any chance to void 
 the marriage and make permanent the relations that 
 now sat easily and lightly must necessarily afford her 
 pleasure, were thoughts that came to him hourly. That 
 she loved him as a father and as a brother, giving him 
 the affection that might have been theirs had they lived, 
 he thoroughly believed. And in this he was right. 
 This was the broad base of her love for him. But there 
 was more than foundation ,
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 191 
 
 Not even to Frank could he confide any of his feel- 
 ings concerning Mabelle, beyond his brief, " Yes, I am 
 hard hit, and I know it. Condemned odd, isn't it, for a 
 man six years married to fall in love with his wife ? " 
 Of Jane he talked freely ; and Frank's two weeks' visit 
 was of the greatest service in relieving his mind of the 
 tension put upon it. 
 
 The death of Robinson from disease of the heart, 
 superinduced by the excitement of his trial and the sub- 
 sequent affirmation of his sentence by the General Term 
 left the way clear to the re-marriage of Mrs. Robinson. 
 
 Mabelle had been perfectly right in her diagnosis 
 that between Frank and Fanny it had been a case of 
 true love resurrected after twelve years, and she studied 
 it with interest. Frank was a bold wooer, once " a true 
 bill "had been found, and he treated Hymen as he 
 would a judge bringing his cause at once to trial and 
 urging his suit with all the eloquence he t could com- 
 mand. Mabelle and Smith formed the jury and it 
 was entirely for the plaintiff first, last, and all the time- 
 But Fanny's own heart made the strongest plea for 
 Frank, and she finally surrendered at discretion. On 
 one point only was she obstinate ; that the marriage 
 should not take place for a year from the time Robinson 
 had procured the divorce from her. At first she had 
 insisted upon a year from the date of Robinson's death ; 
 but finally she retreated to the other date, and there 
 made a stand which nothing could shake. 
 
 " Why are you so cruel to your lover? " Mabelle asks 
 her. " Has lie not waited, have you not waited long 
 enough ? " 
 
 " It does not seem decent," she replied. " There is a 
 strong objection among some people to any remarriage,
 
 192 ins THE LAW. 
 
 and it is founded on common-sense. But at least some 
 little time should -intervene, and a year is short enough. 
 I could not believe it was marriage. It would seem like 
 immorality to act differently." 
 
 u You are perfectly right, dear, and I honor you for 
 it. Without doubt the custom of waiting a year is 
 founded on right feeling. I remember that among 
 some people there were laws forbidding the marriage of 
 a widow within twelve months of her husband's death. 
 But in this day and generation we disobey Solomon 
 and remove the ancient landmarks. The world believes 
 in the polygamy of the Old Testament, but in nothing 
 else. Solomon and his seven hundred wives it under- 
 stands, but Solomon and his wisdom it does not." 
 
 " I do not know whether it is custom or law ; whether 
 it be wise or unwise. All I know is, that I must have 
 time and opportunity to forget one man before I let 
 another kiss me." 
 
 Mabelle laughs softly. u There are few women like 
 you in the world, Fanny. As a rule they prefer to 
 sample the kisses to see if they can find any which taste 
 sweeter. Frank need never fear that you will have a 
 lover." 
 
 " I should hope not." Fanny is indignant. She does 
 not understand the " higher civilization " of the educated 
 and wealthy. 
 
 Billy rallies Frank good-naturedly on his impatience. 
 
 " See here, old man," he says to him, " the decision is 
 in your favor. You must not expect to see the case 
 reported and bound and in your library within a month." 
 
 " That's very well, Billy ; you may be willing to wait 
 a year before you marry her, but I am not." 
 
 u How about Proserpine ? " the other asks, gravely.
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 193 
 
 Frank's face pales slightly. His lips compress, but 
 no word comes. 
 
 " Would you not have been willing to wait years for 
 her?" 
 
 " Yes, for life, if her love had been mine bej^ond the 
 pit. But she is dead to me now. She died last sum- 
 mer that night when your words made me realize all 
 that she was to me. Don't let me bring up the old 
 sorrow and the old fight. I went into court the next 
 day without having closed my eyes. The unsodded 
 mound is still high over the grave in which I buried my 
 love." 
 
 " Then wait, Frank, till the frost and snow of winter 
 and the rains of spring have washed it down. Let it 
 be a mark of respect to her memory. By all the gods, 
 if I were to lose her and there are times when I fear 
 I shall I should never many, or even say a flattering 
 word to another woman while I lived." 
 
 " She loves you, Billy," the other replies, quietly. 
 " I feel confident that you will not lose her. I was 
 talking with her the other day about Jane, and there was 
 something in her face, her voice, her manner when she 
 alluded to you that showed me you were the only man 
 in the world to her. More, she is holding back some- 
 thing abont Jane that she has learned. When she spoke 
 of her there was pity in her voice. ' She cannot take 
 my husband from me,' she said. 'Her fight is a vain 
 one.' I thought at first it meant that you loved only 
 her, until I saw her eyes fall on an open letter lying on 
 the table, and a gleam of triumph come to them. Then 
 I knew that she was fighting to keep you, and that it 
 was a duel between her and Jane. Trust her, Billy, 
 
 trust her. I have more confidence that she will bring 
 
 13
 
 194 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 you safely out of all your trouble than I have in any 
 of your arguments." 
 
 " You are trying to comfort me," Smith replies sadly. 
 " I thank you, Frank, and if I could believe as you do 
 I would have no fears. But the question resolves itself 
 into this. Mabelle will not live in polygamy with me or 
 any man, nor would I be willing to have her. Nor will I 
 live with any woman as a wife except her. That Jane 
 is my wife I am forced to admit. Even though my 
 second marriage is legal, and I believe it is, it does not 
 help me. Whether I live with Jane has no bearing on 
 the case. I might pay her to go to Australia, but that 
 would not help me with Mabelle. She will never be 
 my wife until Jane is dead if she will then. Her 
 nominal bonds of marriage may never be broken but 
 her affection will die out, there will be talk and gossip 
 and scandal that will kill it. I have ruined her life, and 
 when she appreciates it she will hate me as she once 
 hated me." 
 
 " Are you quite sure that Jane is your wife ? " A 
 peculiar tone in the voice brings Smith to his feet. 
 " Mabelle does not believe it. That is her secret. It 
 is upon that she is resting her case. I have divined it 
 from her conversation." 
 
 " There is not the slightest doubt that Jane is my 
 wife," Smith replies. " If Mabelle is trusting to such a 
 broken reed she will suffer but the more. She has been 
 deceived in some way." 
 
 " I will trust her," Frank says, confidently. 
 
 " Then for once you will be beaten. There is no 
 escape. It is the law."
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 She openeth her mouth with wisdom, 
 And the law of kindness is on her tongue. 
 
 Prow. xxxi. 26. 
 
 FIVE people are seated in Mabelle's retreat. For some 
 reason known only to herself she has insisted upon the 
 conference being held there, and Stryker assents with- 
 out regard to Jane's objections. Jane mutely protests 
 by refusing to remove her bonnet, and sits upright on a 
 sofa, while the others avail themselves of the comfort of 
 the easy chairs. 
 
 "As I understand it," ex-Judge Dayton is saying, 
 " this is merely a friendly meeting for a clear under- 
 standing of the situation, and an endeavor to arrive at 
 an amicable understanding, if that be possible, which 
 shall satisfy all parties. I am very glad to see such a 
 spirit. In a large percentage of cases it would stop all 
 litigation, and I am willing to do all in my power to 
 foster it. But what am I to do ? " 
 
 " You are to see that I get my rights my rights as 
 William's wife," Jane says, rather tartly. 
 
 Dayton bends his white head courteously. 
 
 " I have asked you to act as the adviser of all parties," 
 Smith says, a little wearily. " You are absolutely with- 
 out prejudice or favor, and on matters where we cannot 
 agree or do not see the way to an agreement, a word 
 from one who can be trusted goes far to bringing about 
 an understanding."
 
 196 IT IS THE LA IF. 
 
 " Would it not be well for you to make a brief state- 
 ment ? It will then be easier to build the facts that are 
 not in dispute. I understand the general facts, but we 
 should proceed as if all were unknown." 
 
 " The facts, as I regard them, are that I have been 
 twice married once in 1874, and again in 1880. Both 
 marriages are legal. I assert that my first wife deserted 
 me in 1874; that I spent many thousand dollars trying 
 to trace her, and that when I remarried, I was fully au- 
 thorized to do so. My second wife is entitled to have 
 this second marriage set aside, if she so desires ; but she 
 does not desire to do it at present, at least." 
 
 " If she had any sense of " 
 
 Stryker grasps Jane's arm so fiercely that the latter 
 stops short. 
 
 " In that she acts wisely and properly," Dayton says 
 with some slight emphasis. " She is placed in a very 
 unpleasant position, through no fault of her own ; and 
 the law very justly gives her absolute power to control 
 it." 
 
 " But I deny that she is his wife," Jane says, fiercely. 
 " I never deserted him. He deserted me." 
 
 " Will you let me manage this case ? " Stryker asks 
 her sotto voce. " If you wish it, I will resign it to you. 
 If not, you must keep quiet." 
 
 "Do you make this claim?" Smith's weariness is 
 gone. He is active, alert, ready for battle. 
 
 "I am sorry to say, we do," Stryker replies. "The 
 conviction of Greene was based on the implied decision 
 by the court that my client, having been deserted, was 
 entitled to marry again. The deserter had no right 
 to remarry. That privilege is given only to the one 
 deserted. We therefore hold that your second mar-
 
 IT IK THE LA W. 197 
 
 is not lawful. There was an Indiana divorce, but you 
 concede that it had no real validity, I suppose, since 
 it formed no part of your statement. From the time 
 you married my client, in 1874, she has lived within a 
 few miles of her birthplace, leaving it only for brief 
 visits, but retaining residence within the township where 
 you left her. Our case is impregnable in that respect. 
 I do not see" where you get your right to marry again. 
 My client asserts that she is the only lawful wife you 
 have." 
 
 Mabelle smiles to herself. 
 
 " I think you are misinformed." Smith controls his 
 temper perfectly. " I was married in July. We lived 
 together until September, when I had to go back to col- 
 lege. The rent of our house was paid up to September, 
 1875. I left my wife $135, and she said that she 
 thought she would close the house and live with her 
 parents until the Christmas holidays, when I was to re- 
 turn. In October I sent her $40, in November, $60, 
 and later in the month she wrote to me and I sent her 
 $150." 
 
 " You sent me the $60 in October and the $40 in No- 
 vember. I wrote for more because $40 was not enough. 
 You sent $25 3-011 did not mention, in September." 
 
 " This was the last letter I received from her." Smith 
 does not notice Jane's interruption. " I wrote regu- 
 larly, every week. Just before the Christmas holidays 
 one of my letters was returned by the postmaster, 
 marked ' Gone away ; address unknown.' I happened 
 to find it the other day. Here it is. As soon as the 
 holidays came, I went t<> Ilidgeville with Frank Brooks, 
 and we found that my wife and her family had sold off 
 everything, including the lease of my house, and gone
 
 198 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 to Philadelphia. We spent two days searching. Not 
 one of her friends could give me any definite informa- 
 tion." 
 
 " It was none of their business. We told them we 
 were going to Philadelphia ; but we went to Oil City. 
 Father owned a farm near there, and he had creditors 
 who might have followed him." 
 
 " The next June I went up there again, having vainly 
 advertised for her address in all the Philadelphia papers 
 and in all the papers published in Jefferson County. I 
 spent a week. Then I put the search in the hands of 
 detectives. Here are their reports and bills. They are all 
 living to testify. I had to go to Europe in July, with my 
 father ; but the detectives worked on the case for two 
 years before they gave it up. They followed up fifteen 
 or twenty 'clues' and advertised in more than that 
 number of papers. If you will examine these papers 
 and vouchers, you will see that I spent nearly $5,000 
 in this search. I submit to your sense of fairness, 
 Stryker, whether my return to my college was desertion, 
 and whether a man could be expected to do more than 
 I did to find a lost wife." 
 
 " When did you return from Oil City to Tipton ? " 
 Stryker asks Jane. 
 
 " In the summer of 1877. When I found out that you 
 really did care for me," she says to Smith, "and were 
 searching, I wrote twice to the college ; but you did 
 not answer me." 
 
 " I did not get your letters, Jane. My address was 
 not known at the college in 1877, and your letters went 
 to the dead-letter office." 
 
 There is a ghost of a smile on. Dayton's face as he 
 asks, " Well, brother Stryker, what is your opinion ? "
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 199 
 
 ' This puts a different face on the matter," Stryker 
 replies, laying down the last of the papers, which he 
 has looked through carefully. He knows when he is 
 beaten without waiting for the bystanders to tell him. 
 We will abandon our claim we must that the second 
 marriage is illegal," 
 
 " I will not," Jane says ; " my husband deserted me 
 when he left me." 
 
 " You will have to, madame," Dayton says, gently. 
 Your husband had a right to leave his home. He left 
 you in the one he had provided, and sent you money 
 regularly. You sold the lease of his home and his 
 furniture and went away without letting him know 
 where. No lawyer would take your case to dispute the 
 fact that you deserted him. He was not required to 
 spend one dollar in searching for you." 
 
 " Well," Stryker breaks in, cheerfully, "granted all this 
 there can be no dispute that my client is now the first 
 wife and lawful wife of my friend, Smith. The ques- 
 tion is, what does he propose to do ? 
 
 " I am perfectly willing," Smith says, with some bitter 
 ness, for though lie has saved Mabelle's honor, he feels 
 that he has lost her as a wife, "to pay her one-third my 
 income, or one-half, or whatever may be satisfactory, 
 provided she will live apart and at least one hundred 
 miles away." 
 
 " I will never consent, never!" Jane is hot and angry. 
 "William Smith, I am your lawful wife. I insist 
 upon being treated as such. I have done nothing, 
 nothing to cause you to put me away, and I won't be 
 put away as if I were a guilty and unfaithful wife. 
 You shall not live with your new love. I do not want 
 your money. I want my rights. T have done nothing 
 to forfeit them."
 
 200 IT IS THE LA W, 
 
 " You forget, do you not," said Mabelle,*' that it has 
 been conceded that your marriage to Mr. Greene was 
 bigamous, and that } r ou can be prosecuted for bigamy ? 
 Felonies can be prosecuted within five years. That is 
 your present position, but only for a few minutes while 
 the case stands where it does now." It is Mabelle's 
 first word. 
 
 " I am willing to grant, " Smith says, " that for the 
 five years preceding Jane's marriage to Greene I had 
 deserted her. I hold there has been double desertion, first 
 hers, then mine- and that both were free to remarry." 
 
 Jane is white with rage. " Do you dare ! I do not 
 believe your marriage is legal. All this talk is bosh. 
 No court will declare it so. My husband will not un- 
 der oath say he believes it is. If it is, why did he get 
 a worthless Indiana divorce? To satisfy his conscience? 
 Bah! That Indiana divorce is the key to the whole 
 controversy, and shows that all the talk of my desertion 
 is humbug." 
 
 " Yes. The Indiana divorce is the key, " Mabelle 
 says quietly. 
 
 " Why don't you bring out the Indiana divorce ? 
 Why don't you make him explain why he obtained it, 
 if he was free to marry ? " 
 
 " Never mind the Indiana divorce," Stryker replies 
 to her demand. He has a vague feeling as he looks at 
 Mabelle that it is a trap. " It is conceded to be illegal. 
 What more do you want ? " 
 
 " That it shall be thoroughly investigated, " says 
 Jane. " In it will be found the proof that her only 
 claim to be called his wife rests upon it. If it is invalid, 
 she is not his wife, and I am his only lawful wife." 
 
 " And if you were, and if there were not another
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 201 
 
 human being on earth, I swear by all the gods that I 
 would never again speak to you while I lived," Smith 
 says, with passion. 
 
 Jane cowers and is silent. She likes him, in her 
 way, and his words give her a pain sharper than she has 
 ever before experienced. They are the first unkind 
 words he has ever spoken to her. He had teen so en- 
 tirely subject to her will in the old days that she did 
 not realize that any change could be possible except 
 temporarily under Mabelle's influence. 
 
 " She is perfectly right," Mabelle says to Dayton. 
 " Nothing that has thus far been said has touched the 
 real issue." 
 
 " Have you the divorce handy ? " Dayton asks. 
 
 Smith hands it to him and he scans it with attention. 
 
 " This is a waste of time," Stryker remarks. " You 
 admit, Smith, that it is only a piece of waste paper ?" 
 
 " On the subject of this Indiana divorce, I wish to 
 appear for my husband," Mabelle says quickly, before 
 Smith can reply. " I will prove to you in ten minutes, 
 Mr. Stryker, and to you, Mr, Dayton, and to you, Billy, 
 that it is a perfectly valid divorce ; valid in every state in 
 this Union and wherever comity exists among nations." 
 
 Dayton looks at her with keen interest, Smith in per- 
 fect astonishment, Stryker in disgust. The latter has a 
 very low opinion of the female intellect. For women to 
 meddle in legal matters or in questions requiring reason 
 he would make a misdemeanor if he could. 
 
 " It will be admitted," she continues, " that if the In- 
 diana Court had jurisdiction over three things, viz : the 
 subject-matter, the person of the plaintiff, and the per- 
 son of the defendant, its judgment must, under the 
 Federal Constitution, be recognized as valid by every
 
 202 IT IS THE LA \V. 
 
 Court in the United States. Here is the 95th volume 
 of the Supreme Court Reports. You can see the de- 
 cision in the case of Pennoyer vs. Neff, on page 714." 
 
 " That I grant," Stryker says, testily, annoyed at 
 what he regards as the argument of a pert child ; " but 
 the Court had no jurisdiction over the person of the de- 
 fendant who, it is admitted, was a resident of New 
 York and could not change, modify, or alter her mar- 
 riage relations outside the State of Indiana." 
 
 " It had full and complete jurisdiction over her at 
 that time. When this suit was brought, and when 
 this divorce was granted, both the plaintiff and defend- 
 ant were not only residents of Indiana, but citizens of 
 Indiana, and of the same county.'' 
 
 Stryker stares at her. This evidently is no pert child. 
 Her distinction between a resident and a citizen 
 startles him into recognition that she may be different 
 from Jane. 
 
 "The defendant," she continues, in the same cairn 
 voice, "during the year 1879 lived at Sabine, in the 
 county of Marion, having removed there permanently 
 from New York, and acquired citizenship. The plaint- 
 iff was a freeholder in the same county, living at the 
 county seat, Indianapolis, a few miles distant from the 
 residence of the defendant. Here are his tax receipts for 
 that year and the preceding and following years. Here 
 is the affidavit of the Baptist clergyman that the de- 
 fendant lived at Sabine during the year 1879, and here 
 are her receipts for the money paid her for work per- 
 formed for eight residents. Here is a certified copy of 
 her affidavit attached to an application for an appoint- 
 ment by the School Board, in which she swears she is a 
 citizen of the State of Indiana and a resident of Marion 
 County.
 
 IT IS THti LA W. 203 
 
 " Is this true ? " Stryker asks Mrs. Smith-Greene, 
 roughly. 
 
 " Why, yes, I lived there during that year. What 
 has that got to do with it ? " Her temper is rising 
 again. If she could reach Mabelle with her parasol she 
 would jab her. She does not understand the points, 
 only that this sweet-voiced woman is cutting ground 
 from under her feet. 
 
 " It has a great deal, as you will find," he replies, as 
 he turns to listen, no longer with a patronizing air. 
 
 " Mere residence within the State and County is not 
 enough to bring her within the jurisdiction of the court, 
 without proof of sufficient service of the summons and 
 complaint upon the defendant. The summons in this 
 action was not personally served, nor was it nailed upon 
 her door. The reason why was because her residence 
 was unknown to the plaintiff. He had spent $5,000 in 
 searching for her, as you already know. Here are the 
 bills, which you examined a few minutes ago, for adver- 
 tising and from detectives engaged. They were part of 
 the testimony in the suit for divorce to show how dili- 
 gently the defendant had been sought. The summons 
 \vus published for six weeks, in the six leading news- 
 papers of Marion County, and the complaint was filed 
 with the county clerk." 
 
 " That is not sufficient service," Stryker says, uneasily. 
 
 Everything has been so perfect thus far that he begins 
 to feel there is danger ahead. 
 
 u In 1851 the Legislature of that State passed a spe- 
 cial law here are the ' Session La,ws of 1851 ; ' you 
 may read it for yourself, Mr. Stryker, on page 135 
 providing that in suits at law between citizen* of the 
 State (residents are not mentioned), not brought t<> iv-
 
 204 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 cover real or personal property or for damages, when 
 the defendant shall be in hiding, or when the defend- 
 ant's address shall have been duly and diligently sought 
 and not found, upon satisfactory proof to the court of 
 these facts, judgment by default may be entered upon 
 the failure of the defendant to appear and answer after 
 reasonable publication of said summons in two or more 
 newspapers of the county wherein said defendant re- 
 sides, and the filing of the complaint with the clerk of the 
 county. ' This publication shall be deemed and adjudged 
 the same as personal service,' the law says, ; unless fraud 
 be shown, in that this publication has been kept by 
 trick or device from the knowledge of the defendant, 
 or unless it be shown that the defendant was not 
 within the county at the time of publication.' This is a 
 peculiarly worded law, Mr. Stryker, and it was passed 
 many years ago. I do not understand its object or mo- 
 tive ; but you probably will. It may have been repealed, 
 but that it had not been repealed the year this divorce 
 was granted, is evident from the language of the court 
 in the case of Herman vs. Lee, tried the next year. See 
 page 398." 
 
 She passes the book over to Stryker, who is no longer 
 in doubt as to the danger. He sees it clearly. 
 
 Smith's face flushes and pales with emotion. He is 
 saved by her, as she promised ! Now he understands 
 not only her words, but her actions. She knew that 
 she was his only wife and that Jane had no claim. More 
 than that, she has given herself to him of her own free 
 will. He looks at her with tenderness and pride strug- 
 gling for the mastery. 
 
 " By accident, not by design," she continues, " the 
 plaintiff's attorneys conformed in the minutest particular
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 205 
 
 to the requirements of the law. But the law looks only 
 to performance, not to intention. Here are six succes- 
 sive issues of the Indianapolis Weekly Sentinel contain- 
 ing the advertisement ; here is the affidavit of the bus- 
 iness manager that they are genuine copies, and that at 
 the time the defendant was a subscriber ; here is the 
 affidavit of the postmaster at Sabine that she was a 
 member of his club, and that he delivered her the paper 
 weekly while she was a subscriber, with the exception 
 of one week in June, when the advertisement did not 
 appear ; here are the other papers published in the county, 
 each containing the advertisement, and the affidavits of 
 their publishers that it ran for six weeks. There can 
 be no allegation of fraud in keeping the publication 
 from her, nor can she plead absence from the county, 
 and this publication must be 'deemed and adjudged the 
 same as personal service.' '' 
 
 Stryker says nothing when Mabelle pauses. He has 
 been beaten before, but never has he been beaten so 
 thoroughly and so completely. And he has been beaten 
 by a woman ! He glances from the books she has handed 
 him to her, and from her to the books. He cannot 
 comprehend it. 
 
 " How did I know that I was the Jane Smith adver- 
 tised for ? When I read it I supposed of course that it was 
 some other woman of my name. How was I to know ? " 
 Jane is bitter and vicious with a premonition of defeat. 
 Mabelle takes no notice of her remark. 
 
 " You will grant, perhaps, Mr. Stryker, that each 
 State has the right to decide for itself by what means 
 its own courts shall acquire jurisdiction over its own 
 citizens ? If not, I can " 
 
 " I will grant that ; I will grant the personal service ;
 
 206 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 I will grant that the divorce is perfectly valid. I have 
 been deceived about the facts. I have been deceived 
 from the beginning to the end of this case. I withdraw 
 all claims." 
 
 " I do not see any other course left, brother Stryker," 
 remarks ex-Judge Dayton. " Our learned sister-in-the- 
 law has presented the case with such judicial fairness 
 and such remarkable lucidity, that no exception can 
 possibly be taken to any point. During my eighteen 
 years on the bench I never heard from so young a pleader 
 anything approaching it for brevity, completeness, ar- 
 rangement, and scope." 
 
 As he probably had never listened before to so young 
 a pleader, the compliment was not so broad as it might 
 seem to one who did not fully apprehend the difference 
 between the meaning expressed by the sound and that 
 expressed by the sense. 
 
 " This is a surprise to you ? " There is a curious 
 half-laugh in Stryker's voice as he turns to Smith. 
 
 " As great a surprise to me as it is to you. I knew 
 nothing of Jane's visit to Indiana or of the Indiana law 
 of 1851. I have always looked upon the divorce as 
 invalid and never thought of putting it in bar." 
 
 " Your wife then is the better lawyer. I shall be 
 careful hereafter, in taking briefs when you are on the 
 other side, to ask whether you are retained alone or 
 whether I have to oppose both of you. Your shingle 
 should read ' Mrs. and Mr. William Smith, Counsellors- 
 at-Law.' Mrs. Smith, I offer you an equal partnership 
 in my law business. It is the only way I have of show- 
 ing that I bear no malice for defeat at your hands." 
 
 Mabelle smiles good-naturedly. " Do not quiz me, 
 Mr. Stryker. I studied the marriage and divorce laws
 
 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 with ex-Judge Abbott, when a school-girl ; and I am 
 glad I did, for I have saved my husband and my peace 
 of mind. But I know no other law." 
 
 " How long have you known of this, Mabelle? " Smith 
 asks, in a low voice. 
 
 " Ever since the day I learned of Jane. Do you think 
 if I had not known it I could possibly have " She 
 flushes up and does not complete the sentence, but picks 
 up and arranges the scattered books. 
 
 All except Jane understand her, and they feel that 
 she is indeed "far above rubies." A silence born not 
 of admiration, but of honor and respect falls upon the 
 group. 
 
 Jane breaks it. " Will you please explain what all 
 this means ? " she asks, icily. " I have not studied law 
 with an ex-judge, and I do not see that any explanation 
 has been made why this illegal divorce was obtained. I 
 should like to hear my husband's reasons." 
 
 " It means, Mrs. Greene," Dayton says, kindly, but 
 with a slight emphasis on the name, " that we find the 
 Indiana divorce perfectly valid, and Mrs. Smith has 
 shown us that you did not commit bigamy in marrying 
 Mi-. Greene ; that you had been lawfully divorced four 
 years before from Mr. Smith. You are not his wife, and 
 you have not been since 1879. You have no claim upon 
 him not the slightest. Your counsel admits it." 
 
 " But /will not admit it. It is all a conspiracy. You 
 have been bought with her money," she turns to Stryker 
 in her passionate anger. " She has paid you to let her 
 triumph over me. But she shall not. I will have 
 justice. I will appeal to the courts and to the world. 
 You have sold out my case, but the world shall know 
 you for the fraricl and villain that you are. As for you,
 
 208 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 Miss, you may rejoice at present ; you may keep your 
 paramour uncle for a few weeks ; but I will have my 
 revenge on you and I will have my husband." 
 
 She has risen while speaking, and she walks to the 
 door, which she opens, but turns for a last word. 
 
 " Willie ! " she says, " Willie ! " There is no trace of 
 anger in her voice. " Remember our love and our 
 vows and come with me. I am your wife in the sight 
 of heaven." 
 
 " You are the divorced wife of Robert Greene," 
 Stryker says, coolly. It is his revenge for her insult. 
 " I will go with you." 
 
 And he does. 
 
 When the door closes, Dayton takes Mabelle's hand. 
 " You must not let anything she says worry you. No 
 lawyer will take her case. No court will give her judg- 
 ment. She sees the weakness of her claim, but is not 
 willing to admit it. You will never hear from her 
 again. She will talk, but she will be afraid to act. She 
 may bluster, yet she knows in her heart that her defeat 
 is not only founded in justice but in the law." 
 
 " Yes," Mabelle replies, slowly ; " but I pity her. In- 
 deed I do. I would be a sister and friend to her if she 
 would let me. My triumph has brought more sorrow 
 to me than defeat has brought to -her. I shall never be 
 quite happy, for I cannot forget her last appeal. 
 
 " You must put aside all such morbid thoughts, my 
 dear, and remember that it is not you, but the law. If 
 she suffers, it is her fault, not yours or the law's. The 
 law is holy and its commandments righteous, St. Paul 
 says. Pity her transgression, if ) T OU like, but do not 
 condemn her punishment. That would be wrong, for 
 it is the law"
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 209 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 And she laugheth at the time to come. 
 Prov. xxxi. 25. 
 
 " So this was your speculation ! " Smith says, when 
 the door closes upon Dayton, and husband and wife are 
 once more alone. He stands by the small table looking 
 at the neat pile of books and the envelopes arranged 
 and numbered. His voice is low, and only the slow and 
 hesitating utterance betrays his emotion. 
 
 " Yes," she replies, with a little smile and blush, as 
 she seats herself in a small rocker, and leans back look- 
 ing at the grate, her hands locked behind her head. 
 " This is my speculation. And I have won." 
 
 She glances shyly at him as she half whispers the 
 latter words. 
 
 " Do you know what it means ? " he asks, after a mo- 
 ment's pause, during which he has taken her seat by the 
 table. There is a world of tenderness and of sadness in 
 his voice, which she is quick to catch. 
 
 She nods slightly, the blush deepening. 
 
 " You have burned your ships. You are my wife for 
 life. Our marriage now can never be set aside or an- 
 nulled ; nor can you get a divorce. I had no other wife 
 when we were married, and the sins of my youth have 
 been condoned. I love you so honestly and devotedly, 
 Mabelle, that I can feel no selfish joy at what you have 
 
 14
 
 210 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 done for friendship's sake. My heart is filled with a 
 great fear of the time that will come when you will 
 most bitterly regret this sacrifice ; when you will wish 
 you hjad held your peac'e and left a door open through 
 which to retreat. Such a sacrifice should only have 
 been given to one you love ; and you will yet love 
 some one with your whole mind and soul when it will 
 be too late." 
 
 He looks away from her, at the ashes in the grate. 
 There is a slight flame and a thin spiral of blue smoke 
 from a small piece of the soft coal in one corner, and he 
 forgets not only the pain which the concentrated bitter- 
 ness of the last five words reveal, but even the present, 
 in watching it and wondering how long it will last. 
 
 She comes and sits down on his knee, leans her 
 shoulder against his, puts her left arm around his neck, 
 and looks him in the eyes, her own very bright and her 
 face flushed. 
 
 " Look in my eyes, Billy. Do you see a face in 
 them?" 
 
 " I see my own." 
 
 " Don't you know that it is the dearest one in the 
 world to me, now ? that no other ever can or ever will 
 be so dear? " His face pales and then flushes in a wave of 
 color. His arm around her waist presses convulsively ; 
 but he does not interrupt her he cannot. " The love 
 of my life came to me nearly two years ago, Billy, and 
 and it nearly broke my heart." 
 
 Her voice catches. 
 
 " And all for nothing, Billy," she continues, with a 
 half-laugh and sob, "all for nothing. I thought you 
 had another wife and you know what else besides. I 
 could not share you with them, Billy. I shuddered at
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 211 
 
 your caresses because they were not mine, nor for me ; 
 but only lent to me by another woman, as I thought. 
 And my heart was eaten up with jealousy and anger 
 and wild rage until that day you brought Jane. Going 
 down to Arnold's, Fanny told me of the year Jane lived 
 in Indiana, and tbat night at the Casino you said that 
 the ' others ' had been but were not. I cried myself to 
 sleep that night, not from joy so much as from a sense 
 of relief. Do you remember in the fairy story how the 
 faithful Henry puts three iron bands around his heart, 
 and when the peril passes they break, one after another ? 
 Two of the bands around my heart broke that day, 
 and the third has broken to-night. Tell me that you 
 love me, Billy, and no one else, or I shall die of shame 
 for saying this." 
 
 The tears are in his eyes long before she has finished. 
 He gathers her closely to him as a mother gathers a 
 child that is in pain, and her last words are almost in- 
 audible. 
 
 He does not answer at once, but his labored breathing, 
 the agitation he is trying to control, are perfectly satis- 
 factory. When he speaks it is with a sob. 
 
 " I love you, Mabelle, better than I love life, and as a 
 man can only love one woman in one life. You are part 
 of me. Your thoughts are my thoughts, your wishes 
 my wishes, and your life my life. Your nature has 
 become so blended with mine that I could not do of 
 my own volition what you would not do of yours. 
 The past, dear heart, is a dream, a bad dream, and 
 the present is a new life for me even without your love 
 which is something I cannot apprehend as yet, it is so 
 unexpected. My joy and my happiness are in my love 
 for you, not in your love for me. This is a pre-
 
 212 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 cious and a sacred trust ; but I could be happy with- 
 out it. You are sure, very sure, that you love me, Ma- 
 belle? It seems so odd that you should. I am nothing 
 like the hero of your dreams, dear rather the villain 
 that you fly from." 
 
 " This is not much like flying from you, is it ? " she 
 asks, as her arm around him clings with gentle pressure. 
 " Do you know I am so happy here, against your heart, 
 that if I had my will, I should never be anywhere else 
 except when you put me away by main force ? " 
 
 She looks up frankly and honestly into his face, and he 
 bends and kisses her lips tenderly. 
 
 " I want you to feel the same confidence, Billy, in my 
 love for you that I feel in your love for me. We speak 
 inaccurately, to call it love. I understand you ; and to 
 know that your joy and happiness are alone in your 
 love for me, is the only proof I want the only proof 
 there is that it is the crowning and life love ; not the 
 love that arises through the sense, but that which is 
 deep rooted in the intellect a flash of the same fire that 
 makes heroes and martyrs for opinion's sake and finds its 
 complete fruition and satisfaction in the love of truth, 
 miscalled the love of God. Did I not tell you that you 
 would love some one like me, and that it would be the 
 love of your life ? " 
 
 *' Like you ! Like you ! " he says, reproachfully. 
 " Nay, dear heart, my love was to be old and thin and 
 homely ; and you are young and beautiful and lovely." 
 
 " To you, Billy, because you see beyond the covering. 
 You see with your spiritual eyes and that spiritualizes 
 me. But I did not say what she would seem to you, 
 only to others. We will grow old and gray together, 
 but you will never know any change in me, nor I in
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 213 
 
 you, ' my jo, Bill.' I don't think, Billy, you will ever 
 quite understand all that this is to me." 
 
 " And you will never regret the price you paid out 
 of your own money, too, you know ? I shall never pay 
 back a cent." The words are light, but the tone is full 
 of the deepest feeling. 
 
 " I would have spent every dollar I am worth and 
 every dollar you are worth also to know that you were 
 all mine and that no other woman had a claim, legal 
 or moral, on you. I have lived in the shadow of Jane 
 for two years. The thought that you had another living 
 wife has been a nightmare sleeping and waking. It 
 has robbed me of every pleasure in life. It has made 
 me at times insane in my jealousy and ready to adopt 
 any evil suggestion. Her appearance in the flesh, with 
 the announcement that she had no claim on you and was 
 the lawful wife of Robert Greene, which I got from 
 Fanny's first words, gave me my first hours of happiness 
 in your love." 
 
 " Why did you not tell me ? Why did you keep the 
 secret?" 
 
 " Because I wanted to be sure of your love for me. I 
 wanted to see if Jane had any power over you. She is 
 beautiful in the flesh the type of sensuous loveliness. 
 If she had power to draw you to her I did not want your 
 love. I preferred religion and high fashion and a bro- 
 ken heart to a husband and a husband's love not all my 
 own. And when I knew she had no power, and that 
 your heart was mine, and mine alone not Jane's nor 
 another's I wanted to give you something the one 
 wife of your life. Are you sorry I have ? " 
 
 " I have only one regret," he says, with emotion, "and 
 it is that I cannot thank sonic supernatural being for
 
 214 IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 this blessing. I do not wonder at the tenacity with 
 which the ignorant and vicious cling to the idea of a 
 personal God to whom they can give thanks for the 
 happiness they do not make for themselves and do not 
 deserve. I feel as if I must thank some one. We lose 
 much when we give up our belief in fairies and gods. It 
 has often been a sorrow, but never so keen as now. I 
 feel as if I would like to pour out my soul in thanks- 
 giving." 
 
 " That is merely the ' old Adam ' of your inheritance," 
 she replies, as she takes his hand and lays it on her 
 cheek. " Leave such thoughts where they belong to 
 the criminal classes and the lunatics and thank your- 
 self and only yourself. No one receives a blessing he 
 does not deserve, nor a joy he has not made for himself. 
 You are better than all the gods ever created in the 
 mind of man, and deserve more. There might be a per- 
 sonal Devil, for our misfortunes often are not our fault ; 
 but a personal God is contrary to reason and revelation. 
 The Master was right, Billy. The Kingdom of Heaven 
 is within us, not above us, and when we receive in our 
 hearts the spirit of Truth, the Comforter, we are like 
 your old friend Prometheus, whom the gates of hell 
 could not prevail against. Have you forgotten the 
 Greek theology, in which you so delight, that you would 
 thank the enemy of mankind for a good gift ? Go to, 
 Billy, go to. If he should give it, it would be for a 
 wicked purpose. We should fear the gods who bring 
 gifts." 
 
 He takes her face between his hands, and kisses her 
 eyes and lips. 
 
 " You cannot tempt me, my heart's delight, into any 
 discussion that will carry me away from this subject of
 
 IT IS THE L'AW. 215 
 
 which my heart is full. The bait is tempting to a hun- 
 gry fish; but I am not a-hungry. Your theology is 
 put forward to be combatted, not defended. What for ? " 
 
 " So that I can lie here in your arms and hear you 
 talk. You are not hnngry, Billy. But just think how 
 hungry I must be! I am your wife, at last; your one, 
 true, lawful wife, except in Illinois. And for two years 
 I have not had the loving of a wife only of a leman. 
 It has been my own fault, of course, for I have been 
 your wife ; but I did not know it nor did you, Billy." 
 
 Never more need she be stayed with flagons nor 
 comforted with apples. 
 
 " What did you mean by not being my wife in Illi- 
 nois?" he asks, presently. 
 
 She reaches to the table and hands him a folded 
 paper. 
 
 " This is something I thought best not to mention to 
 Mr. Stryker." 
 
 He opens the paper, glances over it, and smiles. 
 
 " For the sake of your reputation as a lawyer, I am 
 glad you did not," he remarks. "This is something 
 which you could not make valid, little one, if you had 
 the wealth of the Indies. I acknowledge that you are 
 the better lawyer on divorce, but here you have me on 
 my pet study of jurisdiction. Did you expect to hum* 
 bug me with it ? " 
 
 " And is it not valid in Illinois ? " 
 
 He laughs softly. " You haven't read it, Mabelle. It 
 is granted by a justice's court. The form is all right, 
 the seals are here, and the signatures maybe genuine. 
 But you know that such a court has no jurisdiction in 
 divorce suits. Jurisdiction over the person may be 
 waived. But jurisdiction over the subject-matter can-
 
 I'll. IT IS THE LAW. 
 
 not be waived. No agreement that may be made by the 
 parties to a suit will give a court power to decide a case 
 which the law does not give it jurisdiction over. This 
 is one of those ' bogus ' divorces that lawyers who adver- 
 tise get for their clients. They are all frauds, without 
 an exception. Usually the decrees are forgeries, made 
 in their offices. Sometimes one of these swindlers will 
 make an arrangement with some western justice, who 
 has no right to grant divorces, to sign his name and 
 attach his court seal. They usually charge from $30 to 
 $100 for this worthless bit of paper. What did you 
 pay?" 
 
 " Nothing. Mark Mann sent it to me. Just before 
 we left Chicago he and I were talking about the way they 
 were granted in Illinois. He said he could get one in 
 ten days for anybody. As you had one I thought I 
 might as well have one it might come in handy some 
 time. So I said I would like to have the proof, to show 
 my friends. We left the next day for New York, but 
 it came by mail within the ten days. It appears 
 regular." 
 
 " Yes. The only thing lacking is the jurisdiction of 
 the court. Incalculable misery is caused by the sharks 
 who furnish the unsuspecting applicant with these di- 
 vorces. They have no validity whatever. People who 
 marry again on the strength of them, usually find them- 
 selves in Sing Sing for a term of years as the result. 
 Mann ought not to have smirched himself by even a 
 speaking acquaintance with one of these wretches. 
 Suppose you had never learned anything about the law, 
 and had desired to take advantage of the divorce, it 
 might have ruined your life." 
 
 She does not tell him of her temptation, either now 
 or at any future time. The dead past buries its dead.
 
 IT IS THE LAW. 217 
 
 But a shiver runs through her at the thought of what 
 she has escaped by the skin of her teeth. 
 
 " I have some news for you," she says, " now that I 
 am sure it will not distress you. Nellie and Dick were 
 married at Garrison's the day before yesterday, and 
 have gone to Washington to spend their honeymoon. 
 Aren't you sorry?" Her gayety is tempered still by 
 the thought of what might have happened. 
 
 " For Dick ? " he asks, with such a world of meaning 
 that she colors a little. " Where shall we spend ours ? " 
 he whispers. 
 
 The color deepens on her face, but she puts both 
 arms around his neck and whispers bravely: "Here, 
 Billy, where Love has come to us. Let us hope it shall 
 last our life." 
 
 She takes the Chicago decree from the table and 
 stoops down to the grate, searching for a small coal. 
 When it is found and broken open she places the pa- 
 per on the flame that dances up, and she waits until 
 nothing remains but a black cinder. 
 
 Her husband stands watching her. He understands, 
 perhaps, more fully than she dreams of, what that act 
 means. When she rises, he opens his arms and she 
 glides within them. 
 
 A few weeks later the following appeared in The 
 World, under its ridiculously and inaccurately worded 
 marriage notices : 
 
 STRYKER-GREENE On Thursday. Nov. 18. by the 
 Rer. Dr. Snooks, of St. Timothy the Apoitle. 
 CHARLES EDWARD STUTKEB. of this city, to Mrs. 
 JANE GREENE (net WILLIAMS), of Tipton, N. Y.. 
 at the residence of Mrs. Peter Stryker, 4004 West 
 49th st. 
 
 The early delivery brings Smith this letter from 
 
 Jane's third husband :
 
 218 IT IS THE LA W. 
 
 MY DEAR SMITH : 
 
 What you have done to secure my nomination and election should 
 be repaid in something better than words. I have married Jane, and 
 she will trouble you no more. Are we quits ? 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 C. E. STRYKER. 
 
 At the breakfast-table Smith hands both the paper 
 and the letter to Mabelle, without a word. She looks 
 at him a little curiously, but with no shadow of doubt. 
 
 He laughs. "You are thinking of what I said of 
 Greene ' the fly in the ointment ' are you not ? I will 
 say of Stryker, ' His lips are as lilies, dropping liquid 
 myrrh.' " 
 
 " Since when have you been reading the wisdom of 
 the son of Bathsheba ? " Mabelle asks, with a smile. 
 
 " Since the vine hath budded, and its blossoms have 
 opened ; since the pomegranate hath flowered, and thou 
 hast given me thy love, my beloved," he replies. 
 
 Here let us leave them, while in the web of life they 
 hold the thread that makes for righteousness, and, 
 under subjection to the law of their minds, they choose 
 good and not evil, not because of any preference for 
 one over the other, but because it is the law. 
 
 THE END.
 
 
 :