The Church’s laws were not flexible on fundamental questions; they were made for all, and whether they were brought to bear upon a case which seemed to deserve the severity of their full application, or whether--as now--they seemed too cruel, they admitted no indulgence. Rodney Moore had married a girl who was baptized in the Catholic Church, as was he. He had married unwisely, from unworthy motives, but that did not lessen the guilt of the wife who had betrayed him. The Church would not insist that the union of marriage be maintained in such a case as this, but Rodney and his wife had spoken the vow which precludes the taking of another man or woman in espousal till death has ended the duration of that vow. The state could annul the civil marriage which it had made, but far beyond its province lay the sacramental marriage, so far beyond it that not even the Church, with its divinely delegated authority to bind and to loose could annul a marriage to which there was no impediment according to her laws; performed by her authority under God; vowed to God directly; sealed by her sacramental seal which cannot be broken till death has broken it. This knowledge of the Church’s position as to marriage came clearly before Cicely’s mind as she knelt, her eyes fixed upon the altar, which she did not see. With such vivid remembrance of what she had been taught by sermons, by reading, by acquaintance with Catholics like the Dowling family, whose talk on divorce she had heard and shared, for it is a subject that no modern American can escape, Cis marshalled the facts of the Catholic Church’s attitude toward divorce. She had heard words which returned to her, and she knew who it was that had uttered them. “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they two shall be as one flesh. And he that shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery.” Strange that she should remember this! Cis wondered at it; she could not ordinarily repeat texts. There was no divorce, not within the Church. Cicely knew now why she had repeated wearily those horrible words: “He has a living wife.” Rodney had a living wife, and while she lived Cicely Adair could not be his wife, however wicked his wife had been--not in the eyes of the Catholic Church! There was the crux of the matter. In the eyes of the state, of the average American society, Cicely Adair, and still another after her, might be Rodney Moore’s wife for all his first misadventure! Rodney implored her to come out of the Church into freedom. Ah, yes, and more, far, far more--into his arms, into his home, into that lovable, cheery, blessed little apartment waiting for them!