"Is not that woman to be considered?" Edith continued. "Is the good of
the man to count for nothing? Mr. Herman is sacrificed to an old
mistake. Perhaps it is right that he should pay the price of his error;
and that in the end it will be overruled for his good, we may hope. But
it is hard to have patience now with the state of things."
Helen tapped her teaspoon nervously against her cup.
"But what can be done?"
"Nothing," Mrs. Fenton said, without the slightest hesitation. "You and
I may think these things, but it would be a crime for Mr. Herman to
think them."
"It might be cowardice to yield to them," responded Helen; "but how
crime? And how can one help the thoughts from turning whithersoever
they will?"
Edith pushed back her plate, leaned forward with folded arms resting
upon the edge of the table. She flushed a little, as she did sometimes
when she felt it her duty to say something to her husband which it was
hard to utter.
"I do not think you and I agree in this," she said, in a voice which
her earnestness made somewhat lower than before. "Marriage is to me a
sacrament, and this very fact gives it a nature different from ordinary
promises. We promise to love until death do us part. To me that is as
imperative as any vow I can make to God and man."
"But love," Helen urged, with a somewhat perplexed air, "is not a thing
to be coerced.
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