A Struggle for a Ring — page 368: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

364 “THAT SEALS MY FATE?!’ his obtaining the separation; she had always heard that money could do anything—that, in reality, there was one law for the rich and one for the poor. She wasted no time in trying to think whether she could, in the eyes of the law, cease to be his wife; all she thought of was, should she give her consent? Her first impulse was natur- ally to refuse, to cling to him, to tighten her hold of him, to refuse to be parted from him, to refuse to yield him to ~ another. He was her own husband, she said; Heaven had given him to her, and if she yielded, he would marry this beautiful woman whom he loved, and then he would think no more of her. She pictured to herself the long years, stretching out far and wide, all dull, dark, and dreary, while her husband was happy in another love. She bit her lips, she clenched the little white hands—it was not to be borne, not to be thought of. Then, if she refused— ah! what was the alternative? He would not make his marriage known, nor, after all that she had heard, did she wish him to do so; the result would be nothing but family disunion and misery. He would go abroad; she would, perhaps, spend years and years without ever seeing him; and he would grow to hate her in time because she stood between him and the one great happiness of his life. Of the right or wrong she could not judge; she was willing to leave that in wiser hands—all that she had to concern herself with was, should she give her consent? Through long hours she sat there debating, unable to make up her mind, unable to decide, weeping bitter tears of passionate despair, then praying with the simple faith of a child. | Once she had honestly believed that nothing could dis- solve the tie of marriage, that no earthly power could part those who, before Heaven, were joined; but wiser heads Eomicbooks.co