"My training had been religious, and I had always prayed. This, I felt, entitled me to help; and yet help did not come. I felt forsaken of God, and sullenly shut my lips to prayer or complaint. All severely tried souls go through a similar experience. Christ himself cried out: 'My God, my God, why hast _forsaken_ me!'" "No wonder you felt forsaken, indeed." "You think I was as tried as I could be then, when I had a hope of escape; but worse came after that--worse, because more hopeless." "You were really married to him then?" I cried in alarm: "I thought you told me in the beginning, that you were not." "Neither was I; but that did not release me. When at last I received an answer to my inquiries, confirming the statement of the immigrant from Ohio, it was too late." "You do not mean!"--I interrupted, in a frightened voice. "No, no! I only mean that I had committed a great error, in keeping silence on the subject at the first. You can imagine one of your acquaintances who had been several months peaceably living with a man of good appearance and repute, to whom you had seen her married, suddenly declaring her husband a bigamist and refusing to live with him; and on no other evidence than a letter obtained, nobody knew how. To _me_ the proof was conclusive; and it made me frantic to find that it was not so received by others." "What did he say, when you told him that you had this evidence? How did he act?" "He swore it was a conspiracy; and declared that now he had borne enough of such contumelious conduct; he should soon bring me into subjection. He represented himself to me, as an injured and long-suffering man; and me, to myself, as an unkind, undutiful, and most unwomanly woman. He told me, what was true, that I need not expect people to believe such a 'cock and bull story;' and used every possible means of intimidation, except actual corporeal punishment. _That_ he threatened long after; and I told him if he ever laid a finger on me, I should certainly shoot him dead. But we had not come to that yet." "Long after!" I repeated. "You do not, you cannot mean that this wretch continued to live under the same roof with you, long after he knew that you would never acknowledge him as your husband?" "Yes, for years! For years after he knew that I knew he was _what he was_, he lived in my house and took my earnings; yes, and ordered me about and insulted me as much as he liked." "But," I said, "I cannot understand such a condition of things. Was there no law in the land? no succor in the society about you? How could other women hold still, and know that a young creature like you was being tortured in that way?"