"Yes; but is a divorce wrong when——"
"A divorce is always wrong."
"Your church didn't perform the marriage, why should it consider the marriage a real one?"
"Because it has decreed that a true marriage according to the rite of any faith is binding."
"But marriage is a contract."
"Marriage is a sacrament."
They would get so far—always darting down this byway and that of casuistry, only to find that the ways were blind alleys ending against the impregnable wall of arbitrary custom—and then she would come back to his point of view. She would came back with tears, which made her great eyes so lovely that he could only just restrain himself from taking her into his arms; and she would brush away the tears and smile, and, sitting apart, they would be joined in their high sorrow, made one in a passion of abnegation.
But he could not leave the house. Each knew that when he did leave it must be forever. They were agreed upon the impossibility of a continued proximity, upon the mockery of a sentimental friendship, and they clung, with weak tenacity to every slipping moment of this concluding interview.
In one of their long pauses a clock struck twelve.
Muriel started.