"I do not believe you. I think as your holiday was over, you wished to back out of your promise, and you knew the easiest way to do so was to require her to go back to Glasgow."
"Back out! What do you mean, David?"
"Your mother orders you home, and rather than offend her, or meet her sarcasms, you ask Theodora to do what you well know she will never do. Having taught her to love you again, you make her an offer that it is impossible for her to accept; then you leave her to suffer once more the pang of wrong and despairing love. Cowardly is too mild a word; your conduct is that of a scoundrel."
"My God, David, are you turning against me?"
"Robert, Robert! I am ashamed of you. Suppose Theodora went back to Glasgow with you, what would be her position, and what would people—especially women—say about it? She would be a wife who ran away from her husband, but whom her husband discovered, and brought back to her duties. Upon this text, what cutting, cruel speeches mother and all the women in your set would make. The position would be a triumph for you—some men would envy and admire you, all would praise you for standing up so persistently for the authority of the male. But poor Theodora, who would stand by her?"
"I would."
"And your defence of your wife would be counted as a thing chivalrous and magnanimous in you, but it would be disgraceful in her to require it. She, the poor innocent one, would get all the blame and the shame, you, the guilty one——"
"Stop, David! I never thought of her return in this light."
"I can imagine mother and the rest of the women chortling and glorying over the runaway wife brought back."
"I tell you, I would stand by her through thick and thin."