“Is it through me that you suffer?”
“It is through you.”
“Will you tell me how?”
He had already found the chapter. His tears dropped on it as he pointed to the verse.
“Read,” he answered, “what the most compassionate of all Teachers has said, in the Sermon on the Mount.”
She read: “Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”
Another innocent woman, in her place, might have pointed to that first part of the verse, which pre-supposes the infidelity of the divorced wife, and might have asked if those words applied to her. This woman, knowing that she had lost him, knew also what she owed to herself. She rose in silence, and held out her hand at parting.
He paused before he took her hand. “Can you forgive me?” he asked.
She said: “I can pity you.”
“Can you look back to the day of your marriage? Can you remember the words which declared the union between you and your husband to be separable only by death? Has he treated you with brutal cruelty?”