“At first sight,” he said, “the human instinct is always to say that anything out of the common must be wrong; but that’s only our natural cowardice and love of letting life alone. And I, for one, am not going to say that because a woman changes husbands, or a man changes wives, it follows they are doing the wrong thing. Often a pinch of pluck will break a partnership to the advantage of both parties, and it’s a darned sight better than shaking their chains and making a nuisance of themselves in the face of the people. An unhappy marriage is a bad advertisement for the institution, and a man like me, who believes heart and soul in marriage, is always sorry to see an unhappy marriage go on.” “But if every young pair who quarrelled before their first child came was to part like this, the world couldn’t go on. Those that God have joined let no man put asunder.” “No man can,” he answered. “You needn’t worry about that. If God joins up a man and woman, man can’t put ’em asunder, nor yet anything else. They’re one body and soul till death parts ’em. But because a pair marry, it don’t follow that God have had anything to do with it. There’s a lot of other institutions besides God. We make mistakes in all walks of life and in none oftener than in marriage. And in my opinion it’s one of the things, like any other partnership, that God don’t specially take under His protection. Love is a trick of nature, and Nature says to herself, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try again.’ Nature’s trying again with your daughter, Mrs. Trivett.” She sighed. “I wish to Heaven as Nature had left her alone then, for she was married to a good man, and whatever she feels about him, there’s no doubt he was ready and willing enough to love her to the end of his life.” “It often happens,” he answered, “and of course that sort of parting’s the saddest, where one party don’t want to part and t’other does. When both are fed up, then they can break loose with self-respect and mutual applause; but if one’s got to run away from the other, then the case is altered. But no doubt Ned Dingle will rise to it. He’s clever enough to know that it’s useless keeping a wife if she’s breaking her heart to escape. The fact that Medora has done this venturesome act and gone to another man, will show your son-in-law the game’s up. If she’d just gone off on her own, he might have hunted after her and won her back perhaps—if he wanted her back; but since she’s gone with somebody else and is ready to face all that means—well, that leaves her husband in no doubt of her meaning, don’t it?”