“Oh, it's not ridiculous to me, Doctor Mosely; and I'm not ridiculing it. I am horribly afraid of what it has done to me and will do to me.”
“Explain that, my dear.”
She did explain with all bluntness: “My husband openly lives with a mistress. He prefers her to me.”
The old man was stunned. He faltered: “Dear me!”
“That is most reprehensible—most! He should be subjected to discipline.”
“Whose? He isn't a member of your church. And how can you discipline such a man—especially as you don't believe in divorce?”
“Have you tried to win him back to the path of duty, to waken him to a realizing sense of his obliquity?”
“Often and long. It can't be done, for he loves the other woman.”
“Don't use the beautiful word love for such a debasing impulse.”
“But I know he loves her!”