“I have not called it a house of sin; God forbid that I should be so foolish! but it was made the means of my committing the greatest sin of my life—the abandonment of myself—myself—at the bidding of my parents. All that has happened since, you have assured me as a delegate, is to be part of a great trial sent for the purification of my heart, my soul, whatever you please. Well, I told you that I accepted that view and that I hoped I should come away from it purified and strengthened. But I cannot get away altogether from the thought that perhaps it may be a judgment on myself for being untrue to myself when I entered your church at the bidding of my father and my mother to say words that I knew to be false—that they knew to be false—to make promises that I knew it would be a crime to keep.”
“I care nothing about that, Priscilla. All that concerns me is that you were joined to a man according to the rites of the Holy Church, and that, he being still alive you are now wife to him and to no other.”
“And you would have me now go to him and live with him as his wife according to God’s holy ordinance, and to keep those promises which I made in your church?”
“I solemnly affirm that such is your duty.”
“You say that, knowing the man, and knowing that he is a criminal—that he married me to save himself from the consequences of his crime—you can tell me that I should worship him with my body, that I should love, honour, and obey him till death us do part? Knowing that I have never had any love for him, you tell me that my place is by his side?”
“Your place is by his side. The words of the Prayer-book are there; no Christian priest has any option in the matter. The mystic words have been said. ‘The twain shall be one flesh.’”
“Ah, there is the difference between us—the flesh. You will insist on looking at the fleshly side of marriage, whereas I look on the spiritual. Don’t you think that there may be something to be said in favour of the spiritual aspect of marriage—the marriage voice which says, not, ‘The twain shall be one flesh,’ but ‘The twain shall be one spirit’? What, Mr. Possnett, will you say that marriage is solely a condition of the flesh?”
“I refuse to answer any question put to me in this spirit by a woman who is living in sin with a man who is not her husband.”
“You will admit that the trial to which I have been subjected has influenced me for good—making me patient and forbearing in the face of a repeated insult such as I would not have tolerated from any human being a week ago. I have listened to you, and I have even brought myself to pay you the compliment of discussing with you a matter which concerns only my husband and myself, but you have not even thought it worth your while to be polite to me—to treat me as an erring sister. You come with open insults—with an assumption of authority—to pronounce one thing sin and another thing duty. But your authority is a mockery—as great a mockery as the enquiry in the marriage service, ‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’ when you know that the pew-cleaner will be accepted by the priest as the one who possesses that authority. Your authority is a mockery, and your counsel is worth no more than that of any other man of some education, of abilities which have the lowest market value of those required for any profession, and experiences of the most limited character.”
“Woman—Priscilla, you forget yourself!”