“But it isn’t the priest who mumbles the formula that counts. He is only an instrument. It is the spirit behind it all. We swore before God in his house to remain together until death us do part. It was a sacred oath. Nothing but death can dissolve it.”
“If you swore to remain with me until death, why are you willing to have a separation? Isn’t that against your principles, too?”
His irony cut her to the quick.
“I cannot remain with a man who does not love me,” she replied quietly, “any more than I could live with any other.”
“And supposing I love some one else and want to marry her?”
“It would be impossible. It wouldn’t be legal.”
“But I am neither Roman Catholic, nor Unitarian. I wear no label or tag of any sort, thank the pagan gods. And as I do happen to want to marry another woman, I warn you now that if you refuse to get a divorce against me, I shall do something desperate.”
“Alexis, Alexis!” The tortured cry sprang from her involuntarily. “What can I do? I am ready to die to make you happy, but I cannot consent to a divorce. It would be a sin. A living lie!”
“A sin! A living lie! That is all cant and gibberish. I was sorry for you a while ago, Claire. I pitied you from the bottom of my heart. But you are hard as stone. If you had consented to do what I asked I would have been happy to settle half of my future income upon you, as I am taking up my violin again. But you are like a rock, as fixed in your mold as a fossil in its shelf of prehistoric stone.”
She wrung her hands. “Oh, Alexis, don’t speak to me of money! I’d rather kill myself than to take a penny from you under such conditions.”