She had never been more winning--more lovely.
She placed her hands on his shoulders as he sat beside her, and leaned her
soft cheek against his.
"Do you mean--let them stay on at the Farm?" he asked, after a pause,
putting his arms round her.
"Couldn't they? They could live so quietly. She would hardly ever leave the
house--and so long as he does his work--his scientific work--need anything
else trouble you? Need you have any other relations with them at all?
Wouldn't everybody understand--wouldn't everybody know you'd done it for
pity?"
Again a pause. Then he said, with evident difficulty: "Dear Marcia--do you
ever think of my father in this?"
"Oh, mayn't I go!--and _beg_ Lord William--"
"Ah, but wait a minute. I was going to say--My father's an old man. This
has hit him hard. It's aged him a good deal. He trusted Betts implicitly,
as he would himself. And now--in addition--you want him to do something
that he feels to be wrong."
"But Edward, they _are_ married! Isn't it a tyranny"--she brought the
word out bravely--"when it causes so much suffering!--to insist on more
than the law does?"
"For us there is but one law--the law of Christ!" And then, as a flash of
something like anger passed through his face, he added, with an accent of
stern conviction: "For us they are _not_ married--and we should be
conniving at an offense and a scandal, if we accepted them as married
persons.
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