“Do you think that any one—that any woman who’s been through what I’ve been through can start over again!”
“Of course she can! Why not? A man can fail and fall, for that matter, and then get up and start fresh.”
“Oh, but that’s different; the man’s not the question. I’m a woman. It’s not the same thing at all!”
“You’re getting back now to the fundamental question—the double standard of morals. It’s not relevant. You’re not doing anything immoral to refuse to live with a coward.”
“I didn’t even stop to think!” she cried. “When he told me what he’d done, I”—she shuddered—“I couldn’t stay!”
“Of course you couldn’t! What’s more, I won’t let you go back to him. You understand that, Di? You’re nervous and broken down, and he may try to persuade you, but I’ll never let you go back!”
“But if—if I went, papa?”
He struck his hand down on the table.
“Understand me. If you went I’d never speak to you again as long as I lived! Don’t you see what he did? He wasn’t only a coward; he would have been Overton’s murderer if the English party hadn’t come along. It was a miracle that saved Overton; Faunce as good as left him purposely to die.”
“Yet”—she spoke with an effort—“yet Overton doesn’t blame him as you do. He tries to excuse him.”