"Was he bad always from the first?"
"He always drank,—from his wedding-day; and then Robert was with him, who was worse than he. Between them they were very bad. My life was a burden to me. It was terrible. It was a comfort to me even to be deserted and to be left. Then came this Englishman in my way; and it seemed to me, on a sudden, that the very nature of mankind was altered. He did not lie when he spoke. He was never debased by drink. He had other care than for himself. For himself, I think, he never cared. Since he has been here, in the school, have you found any cause of fault in him?"
"No, indeed."
"No, indeed! nor ever will;—unless it be a fault to love a woman as he loves me. See what he is doing now,—where he has gone,—what he has to suffer, coupled as he is with that wretch! And all for my sake!"
"For both your sakes."
"He would have been none the worse had he chosen to part with me. He was in no trouble. I was not his wife; and he need only—bid me go. There would have been no sin with him then,—no wrong. Had he followed out your right and your wrong, and told me that, as we could not be man and wife, we must just part, he would have been in no trouble;—would he?"
"I don't know how it would have been then," said Mrs. Wortle, who was by this time sobbing aloud in tears.
"No; nor I, nor I. I should have been dead;—but he? He is a sinner now, so that he may not preach in your churches, or teach in your schools; so that your dear husband has to be ruined almost because he has been kind to him. He then might have preached in any church,—have taught in any school. What am I to think that God will think of it? Will God condemn him?"
"We must leave that to Him," sobbed Mrs. Wortle.
"Yes; but in thinking of our souls we must reflect a little as to what we believe to be probable. He, you say, has sinned,—is sinning still in calling me his wife. Am I not to believe that if he were called to his long account he would stand there pure and bright, in glorious garments,—one fit for heaven, because he has loved others better than he has loved himself, because he has done to others as he might have wished that they should do to him? I do believe it! Believe! I know it. And if so, what am I to think of his sin, or of my own? Not to obey him, not to love him, not to do in everything as he counsels me,—that, to me, would be sin. To the best of my conscience he is my husband and my master. I will not go into the rooms of such as you, Mrs. Wortle, good and kind as you are; but it is not because I do not think myself fit. It is because I will not injure you in the estimation of those who do not know what is fit and what is unfit. I am not ashamed of myself. I owe it to him to blush for nothing that he has caused me to do. I have but two judges,—the Lord in heaven, and he, my husband, upon earth."