Before I ever spoke to her of love, she had confided to me her own
unhappiness--the uncongeniality of her married life, the harshness, and
even brutality, of her husband. Even a man less in love than I was could
have seen the truth of this--the contrast of the coarse, sensual, and
vulgar man with an apparently refined and intelligent woman; but any one
else except myself would have suspected that such a union was not
merely a sacrifice of the woman. I believed her. It was not until long
afterwards that I learned that her marriage had been a condonation of
her youthful errors by a complaisant bridegroom; that her character
had been saved by a union that was a mutual concession. But I loved her
madly; and when she finally got a divorce from her uncongenial husband,
I believed it less an expression of her love for me than an act of
justice. I did not know at the time that they had arranged the divorce
together, as they had arranged their marriage, by equal concessions.
"I was the only son of a widowed mother, whose instincts were from
the first opposed to my friendship with this woman, and what she
prophetically felt would be its result. Unfortunately, both she and my
friends were foolish enough to avow their belief that the divorce was
obtained solely with a view of securing me as a successor; and it
was this argument more than any other that convinced me of my duty to
protect her.
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