"Do not think," he said, "that I have not considered this question from your side. It has been in my thoughts night and day for months. The idea of divorce is repugnant to you--though you have ceased to love the husband who deeply wronged you. You shrink even more from marrying again because your children's father is still alive. If he were dead, the bar would be removed, and you would not hesitate. I appeal to your common sense, Constance. What sound reason is there why you should sacrifice your happiness--the happiness of us both?" "It is not a question of common sense--is it?" It was a faltering query which followed the assertion. "The question is, what is right?" "Amen to that!" he cried. "Yes, right, right. And who says it is not right?" She had been so sure she would never marry again that she had never sought exact knowledge of her church's attitude in this regard, and yet now she had her fears. She knew that no Roman Catholic could marry again during the life of a divorced husband or wife, except by special dispensation, and she was aware of the increasing reluctance of the officials of her own church in this country to give the sanction of the marriage service to the remarriage of divorced persons; but she had never examined the church canon on the subject, for she had flattered herself that she would never need to. Discussions of the topic which she had listened to or read had played like lightnings around her oblivious head, but had served merely to intensify her repugnance to the blatant divorces and double-quick marriages, which she had seen heralded from time to time in the daily press, and which had recently been brought home to her with peculiar force by the events in Mrs. Wilson's family circle. Now the flare of the lightning was in her own eyes, and her brain was numb with the emotion of the personal shock. "Would Mr. Prentiss marry me to you?" she asked, seeking as usual the vital issue. "Your clergyman?" His query was merely to gain time. But he loved directness, too. "Suppose that he would not, there are plenty of clergymen who would." "But he is my clergyman." Gordon moved his chair nearer, and bending forward, took her hand in both of his. "Dearest, this question is for you and me to settle, not for any outsider. It must bear the test of right and wrong, as you say, but I ask you to look at it as an intelligent human being, as the sane, noble-hearted American woman you are. The State--the considered law of the community in which we live--gives you the right to a divorce and freedom to marry again. Who stands in the way? Your clergyman--the representative of your church. The church erects a standard of conduct of its own and asks you to sacrifice your life to it. It is the church against the State--against the people. It is superstition and privilege against common sense and justice. I should like to prove to you by arguments how truly this is so."