"Not till she knew it," said the wife who had been married quite properly.
"And what then? What should she have done then?"
"Gone," said the wife, who had no doubt as to the comfort, the beauty, the perfect security of her own position.
"Gone?"
"Gone away at once."
"Whither should she go? Who would have taken her by the hand? Who would have supported her? Would you have had her lay herself down in the first gutter and die?"
"Better that than what she did do," said Mrs. Wortle.
"Then, by all the faith I have in Christ, I think you are hard upon her. Do you think what it is to have to go out and live alone;—to have to look for your bread in desolation?"
"I have never been tried, my dear," said she, clinging close to him. "I have never had anything but what was good."
"Ought we not to be kind to one to whom Fortune has been so unkind?"