"Why should you not be released from it all?" asked the colonel.
It was the first time he had ever suggested such a possibility, and she looked away from him.
"It is not as if it had all been different before he lost his mind," he went on, seeing that she did not answer at once. "It is not as if you had not had fifty good reasons for a divorce before he finally went mad. What is the use of denying that?"
"Please do not talk about a divorce," said Mrs. Harmon, steadily.
"Please forgive me, if I do, my dear friend," returned the colonel, almost hotly; for he was suddenly convinced that he was right, and when he was right it was hard to stop him. "You have spent half your life in sacrificing all of yourself. Surely you have a right to the other half. There is not even the excuse that you might still do him some good by remaining his wife in name. His mind is gone, and he could not recognize you if he saw you."
"What should I gain by such a step, then?" asked Helen, turning upon him rather suddenly. "Do you think I would marry again?" There was an effort in her voice. "I hate to talk in this way, for I detest the idea of divorce, and the principle of it, and all its consequences. I believe it is going to be the ruin of half the world, in the end. It is a disgrace, in whatever way you look at it!"
"A large part of the world does not seem to think so," observed the colonel, rather surprised by her outbreak, though in any case excepting her own he might have agreed with her.
"It would be better if the whole world thought so," she observed with energy. "Do you know what divorce means in the end? It means the abolition of marriage laws altogether; it means reducing marriage to a mere experiment which may last a few days, a few weeks, or a few months, according to the people who try it. There are men and women, already, who have been divorced and married again half a dozen times. Before the next generation is old that will be the rule and not the exception."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Colonel Wimpole. "I hope not!"
"I know you agree with me," said Mrs. Harmon, with conviction. "You only argue on the other side because--" She stopped short.