"Still you endured it bravely." His tone subtly asked sympathy, while his words gave it.
"I wonder if I could have gone on! I should shock Mr. Attlebury, I suppose, but I thought more than once of divorce. Our home—when we were at home—had always been in Scotland. That would have made it easier, and it needn't have hurt his career anything like so much. He could just have left me and stayed away the necessary time, you see. After the last—the last trouble—he offered me that, if I wished it."
"You must have been under a considerable temptation."
"Yes. But then his health began to fail, and—and things were different. I had to stay and look after him; and so we became better friends at the end. I really don't bear malice now."
"I think with Attlebury on that question, you know."
"Yes, I suppose you do. But then, isn't there—room for doubt?"
"I scarcely think so, Lady Rosaline."
"Oh, but it is hard sometimes, then!" she murmured, looking into the fire. "Do you think there's nothing in the view that the offence itself is a dissolution?—That it's the offender himself—or herself—who puts asunder, not the judge, who merely deals with the legal consequences?"
"No, I can't see that." He paused, frowning, then went on: "I can understand a man maintaining that it's given as a counsel of perfection, rather than an absolutely binding rule—I mean, that a man should try, but, if it proves beyond his strength, he might not be absolutely condemned."
"Does it hurt you to talk about it?"