"Reckon she thinks the old Squire ud like to marry her," said Alce, "I'd be glad if I thought so well of him."
"He can't marry her, seeing as she's your wife."
"If we were divorced, she wouldn't be."
"She would. You were made man and wife in Pedlinge church, as I saw with my own eyes, and I'll never believe as what was done then can be undone just by having some stuff written in the papers."
"It's a lawyer's business," said Arthur.
"I can't see that," said Joanna—"a parson married you, so reckon a parson must unmarry you."
"He wouldn't do it. It's a lawyer's job."
"I'd thank my looker if he went about undoing my carter's work. Those lawyers want to put their heads in everywhere. And as for Ellen, all I can say is, it's just like her wanting the Ten Commandments altered to suit her convenience. Reckon they ain't refined and high-class enough for her. But she may ask for a divorce till she's black in the face—she shan't get it."
So Ellen had to remain—very much against the grain, for she was fundamentally respectable—a breaker of the law. She wrote once or twice more on the subject, appealing to Arthur, since Joanna's reply had shown her exactly how much quarter she could expect. But Arthur was not to be won, for apart from Joanna's domination, and his own unsophisticated beliefs in the permanence of marriage, his suspicions were roused by the Old Squire's silence on the matter. At no point did he join his appeals and arguments with Ellen's, though he had been ready enough to write to excuse and explain.... No, Arthur felt that love and wisdom lay not in sanctifying Ellen in her new ways with the blessing of the law, but in leaving the old open for her to come back to when the new should perhaps grow hard. "That chap 'ull get shut of her—I don't trust him—and then she'll want to come back to me or Jo."
So he wrote with boring reiteration of his willingness to receive her home again as soon as she chose to return, and assured her that he and Joanna had still managed to keep the secret of her departure, so that she need not fear scornful tongues. They had given the Marsh to understand that no settlement having been arrived at, Ellen had accompanied Mrs. Williams to the South of France, hoping that things would have improved on her return. This would account for the foreign post-marks, and both he and Joanna were more proud of their cunning than was quite warrantable from its results.