I do not know whether Raymond had any real affection for Albert. I do not know whether he realized what it was for a father to undertake, single handed, the charge of a boy of six. I think that what moved him chiefly was his determination to carry a point. However all this may be, I remember what he said as, after the decree, he walked out with Albert's hand in his. "Well, it's over!" Over!--as if a separation involving a child is ever "over"! PART VI I His domestic difficulty left behind, Raymond settled down to a middle-aged life of dignity and leisure--or attempted to. But the trial had rather shaken the dignity, and the sole control of Albert ate into the leisure. There followed, naturally, a period of restlessness and discontent. Those who imputed no blame to Raymond still felt it unfortunate, even calamitous, that he should not have learned how to get on with a young wife. But there were those that did blame him--blamed him for an unbending, self-satisfied prig who would have driven almost any spirited young woman to desperation. These disparaged him; sometimes--not always covertly--they ridiculed him. That hurt not only his dignity, but his pride. Some of you have perhaps been looking for a generalized expression of general ideas--for some observations on marriage and divorce which should have the detachable and quotable quality of epigram. Yet suppose I were to observe, just here, that Marriage makes a promise to the ear and breaks it to the hope; or that Divorce is the martyr's crown after the tortures of Incompatibility; or that Marriage is the Inferno, the Divorce-Court the Purgatory, and Divorce itself the Paradiso of human life? You would not be likely to think the better of me, and I should certainly think less well of myself. Though I am conscious of a homespun quality of thought and diction, I must keep within the limits set me by nature, eschewing "brilliancy" and continuing to deal not in abstract considerations but in concrete facts.