The Way of a Man

by Emerson Hough

"Colonel Sheraton," said he at length, "it seems to me that we have no quarrel here among ourselves. We all want to do what is best done now to make amends for what has not always been best done. Mr. Cowles has given every proof we could ask—we could not ask more of any man—you have no right to ask so much. He wishes, at great cost to himself, I think, to do what he can to save your girl's happiness and honor. He admits his own fault." He looked at me, savagely shaking a finger, but went on.

"Perhaps I, a physician, unfortunately condemned to see much of the inner side of human nature, am as well equipped as any to call him more guiltless than society might call him. I say with him, let him who is without guilt first cast a stone. Few of us are all we ought to be, but why? We speak of double lives—why, we all lead double lives—the entire world leads a double life; that of sex and of society, that of nature and of property. I say to you, gentlemen, that all the world is double. So let us be careful how we adjudge punishment; and let us be as fair to our neighbor as we are to ourselves. This is only the old, old question of love and the law.

"But wait a minute—" he raised a hand as Colonel Sheraton stirred. "I have something else to say. As it chances, I am curious in other professions than my own sometimes—I read in the law sometimes, again in theology, literature. I wish to be an educated man so far as I may be, since a university education was denied me. Now, I say to you, from my reading in the law, a strong question arises whether the two who wrote this covenant of marriage are not at this moment man and wife!" He rapped a finger on the parchment.

A sigh broke in concert from all within that room. The next moment, I know not how, we were all four of us bending above the scroll. "See there," went on the old doctor. "There is a definite, mutual promise, a consideration moving from each side, the same consideration in each case, the promise from each bearing the same intent and value, and having the same qualifying clauses. The contract is definite; it is dated. It is evidently the record of a unanimous intent, an identical frame of mind between the two making it at that time. It is signed and sealed in full by one party, no doubt in his own hand. It is written and acknowledged by the other party in her own hand—"

"But not signed!" I broke in. "See, it is not signed. She said she would sign it one letter each week—weeks and weeks—until at last, this, which was only our engagement, should with the last letter make our marriage. Gentlemen," I said to them, "it was an honest contract. It was all the formality we could have, all the ceremony we could have. It was all that we could do. I stand before you promised to two women. Before God I was promised to one. I loved her. I could do no more—"

"It was enough," said Doctor Bond, dryly, taking snuff. "It was a wedding."

"Impossible!" declared Colonel Sheraton.

"Impossible? Not in the least," said the doctor. "It can be invalid only upon one ground. It might be urged that the marriage was not consummated. But in the courts that would be a matter of proof. Whatever our young friend here might say, a court would say that consummation was very probable.

"I say, as this stands, the contract is a definite one, agreeing to do a definite thing, namely, to enter into the state of marriage. The question of the uncompleted signature does not invalidate it, nor indeed come into the matter at all. It is only a question whether the signature, so far as it goes, means the identity of the Ellen Meriwether who wrote the clause preceding it. It is a question of identification solely. Nothing appears on this contract stipulating that she must sign her full name before the marriage can take place. That verbal agreement, which Mr. Cowles mentions, of signing it letter by letter, does not in law affect a written agreement. This written contract must, in the law, be construed just as It stands, and under its own phrasing, by its own inherent evidence. The obvious and apparent evidence is that the person beginning this signature was Ellen Meriwether—the same who wrote the last clause of the contract. The handwriting is the same—the supposition is that it is the same, and the burden of proof would lie on the one denying it.

"Gentlemen," he went on, taking a turn, hands behind back, his big red kerchief hanging from his coat tails, "I take Mr. Cowles' word as to acts before and after this contract. I think he has shown to us that he is a gentleman. In that world, very different from this world, he acted like a gentleman. In that life he was for the time freed of the covenant of society. Now, in this life, thrown again under the laws of society, he again shows to us that he is a gentleman, here as much as there. We cannot reason from that world to this. I say—yes, I hope I am big enough man to say—that we cannot blame him, arguing from that world to this. We can exact of a man that he shall be a gentleman in either one of those worlds; but we cannot exact it of him to be the same gentleman in both!