“No; for if he gets well you will be making him marry me. All the good ladies try to make those kind of men do that. And the men hate us, and we hate them; and even when they are of our own class, they always think we are worse for what was as bad for one as for the other. And they think they have done us great honor; and we keep on, never able to do anything that will make the wrong right; and all that comes of it is hate, hate, hate; and more babies are born, all of them full of hate; and the mothers can’t take care of so many; and it’s all nothing but hate, hate, hate. And the mother dies hating, and the children live hating; and it’s all foolishness and misery. You are my enemy if you make him marry me; and you can’t be my friend if you are his.” “Now, then, is he going to stay here?” “He will stay here,” said Ethel. “Then I must go.” “Must you?” “Yes madame, you would not have two such people under your roof!” “The clear dome above us is the roof I live under,” said Ethelbert, “and it covers all sorts of acting people. A few boards nailed together neither roofs life in nor shuts life out. People who are separated are separated by partitions thin as glass and strong as adamant, and repellant or death-dealing as a live electrical wire. Go or stay, as you choose. But, dear child, you need never fear that I should make Captain Grove marry you, or make anybody do anything. Liberty is the law of life. But I see your perception that you are to Reginald a part of a dreadful dream, the same as he is to you, may be true. A hundred marriage services would not in themselves unite you. All you say of the disaster which comes from these unintelligent methods of compelling legal-unions between persons who are abhorrent to each other, is true. You need have no fear of any compulsion. “We are living in a revolutionary epoch. My family believes marriage is the great sacrament of life. But we do not perceive, however, that all legal marriages are so formed and sustained as to render them sacramental to the parties concerned. Yet we do think that the highest type of marriage is symbolic of the kingdom of heaven. But I will tell you this: If your case were mine, I should not try to right up the wrong I had done by going on to do more wrongs under the shelter of legality. If you consider that Waldemar was damned into being (that was your term, not mine, I should not use it; I do not think he is), your next care should be to bless him out of that condemnatory state, by giving him such instruction and such simple joys in life as will secure him against perpetuating any form of wrong-doing. Put away sadness, Bertha, and remember not wrongs against your brother Reginald. Correct the past by dealing sensibly with the present. Truth and right living will bring good results to the future.