"Yes; and if ever we get a son, Lawrence, he must be called Benjamin—I will have it so."
He fell silent. Dinah often spoke with delight of children; and it was at those times the man felt the drag on his heart hardest. They had argued much, but her frank puzzlement and even amusement at his problems and doubts began to wear them down. She knew it, but, behind her assumption of certainty, still suspected him a little. He varied and seemed more inclined to listen than to talk. But things were rushing to a conclusion and there could only be one.
It was agreed that they must now hide their friendship and their purpose for the sake of other people. Dinah grew full of plans, and Lawrence listened while she ran on; but she knew that the real plans would be made by him. A sort of vagueness came into their relation and its cause was in his head, not his heart. That, too, she knew. But certain things to-day he told her and certain things, unknown to him, she now determined to do. Impatience must have been created for Dinah this evening, but that she understood his doubts were solely on her account. She believed that nothing but questions of law remained to deter Maynard, and of their utter insignificance she had often assured him.
"I've got the facts," he said, "and I'd like for you to hear them. And, after to-night, we mustn't see each other so often. To make it easier for us when we go, we'd better keep as far apart as need be till then. There's a lot must pass between us and we can't post letters very well—not in the pillar-boxes; but we may want a pillar-box of our own presently."
"What I hate about life," she cried, "is that you've got to pretend such a lot. If this had happened to Jane, she'd love the hiding up and the plotting and turning and twisting, like a hare running away from the hounds. But I hate it. I hate to think the world's full of people, who look at life in such a way that what we're going to do must be wrong."
"They've been brought up with fixed ideas about marriage and think it's got more to do with God than with men and women. The interests of the Church are put high above right and justice for the people. They always were; and them that claim marriage is God's plan, also claim that He would chain wretched, mistaken creatures together for life, quite regardless of their honour and decency and self-respect. It's funny that educated men should write the stuff I read; but the moment you see the word 'God' in a newspaper, you can say good-bye to reason and pity. We're punished—we who make a mistake—for what? Oft for nothing but misreading character, or because truth's withheld from us on purpose. Palk was telling of a man he knew who went courting and was never told his intended's mother was in a mad-house. And he married, and his wife went out of her mind with her first child. Now she's got to be put away and may live for fifty years, and sane, well-meaning people tell the man he must bide a widower for ever-more—at the will of God! God wills he should go alone to his dying day, because his wife's people hid the truth from him."
"But the law—surely the law——?"
"The law's with the Church so far. They hunt in couples. But the law's like to be altered 'tis thought; though no doubt the Church will call down fire from Heaven if any human mercy and common sense and decency is brought to bear on marriage."
"Can't the religious people see that lots quite as good as them, and quite as willing and wishful to do right are being put in the wrong? And can't they see tortured men and women won't be patient for ever?"
"No; they put us in the wrong and they keep us in the wrong, for God's sake—so He shan't be vexed. They don't understand it isn't only adultery that breaks up marriage, but a thousand other things beside. It's human progress and education and understanding; and these pious people only leave one door to escape through. And they don't seem to see that to decent thinking and self-respecting men and women that's a door they won't enter. They say, 'If you want to right your mistake, you must sin.' But if Almighty God made marriage, He never made such filth to be thrust down the throats of them that fail in marriage. Thus, any way, it stands with Minnie Courtier at present—and with me. This is the law and clear enough. A man disappears and blots himself out of life, you may say, and, what's more important, blots himself out of the lives of everybody who knew him, including his wife. And the question is, what can the wife do about it? I've looked into this very close, and I find the issue is like a lot of other things in the law. It often depends on the judge, and how he reads the facts of the case, and whether he's all for the letter of the law, or one of the larger-minded sort, who give the spirit a chance. A man not heard about for seven years may be counted dead in the eyes of the law; but there's no presumption he died at any particular time in the seven years, and it isn't enough to say, 'Seven years are past and I'm in the right to presume somebody dead.' You must have legal permission, and judges differ. You've got to prove that diligent inquiries were made to find the vanished person before you apply to the Court, and a human sort of judge is satisfied as a rule and doesn't torment the public and sets a man or woman free. But if circumstances show that the vanished party wouldn't be heard of, even if he was alive, then many frost-bound judges won't allow he's dead, or grant freedom to a deserted partner even after seven years. So, now, though the seven years are up, even if application was made to assume my death, it rests on the character of the judge whether Mrs. Courtier would be allowed to do so."