He encountered a tourist in clerical garb—a thin-chested man with a colorless face, but with sad, benevolent eyes—sitting in the plaza near the sinister old cuartel. He sat down and asked abruptly in a voice strangely high-pitched for his own:
“Is a man ever justified in leaving his wife?”
The tourist looked startled; but he was a man of tact and wisdom, evidently, and he quickly adjusted himself to what was plainly a special need, an extraordinary condition. “Ah, that’s a very old question,” he replied gently. “It’s been asked often, and there have been many answers.”
“But is he?” persisted Harboro.
“There are various conditions. If a man and a woman do not love each other, wouldn’t it seem wiser for them to rectify the mistake they had made in marrying? But if they love each other ... it seems to me quite a simple matter then. I should say that under no circumstances should they part.”
“But if the wife has sinned?”
“My dear man ... sinned; it’s a difficult word. Let us try to define it. Let us say that a sin is an act deliberately committed with the primary intention of inflicting an injury upon some one. It becomes an ugly matter. Very few people sin, if you accept my definition.”
Harboro was regarding him with dark intentness.
“The trouble is,” resumed the other man, “we often use the word sin when we mean only a weakness. And a weakness in an individual should make us cleave fast to him, so that he may not be wholly lost. I can’t think of anything so cruel as to desert one who has stumbled through weakness. The desertion would be the real sin. Weaknesses are a sort of illness—and even a pigeon will sit beside its mate and mourn, when its mate is ill. It is a beautiful lesson in fidelity. A soldier doesn’t desert his wounded comrade in battle. He bears him to safety—or both perish together. And by such deeds is the consciousness of God established in us.”
“Wait!” commanded Harboro. He clinched his fists. A phrase had clung to him: “He bears him to safety or both perish together!”