"They'd say, stay here
and be killed by inches. I say you've had your share of suffering.
They'd say-the liberal ones-stay and get a divorce; but how do we
know we can get one after you've been dragged through the mud of
a trial? We can get one just as well in some other state. Why
should you be worn out at thirty? What right or justice is there in
making you bear all your life the consequences of our-my
schoolboy folly?"
As he went on, his argument rose to the level of Browning's
philosophy.
"We can make this experience count for us yet. But we mustn't let
a mistake ruin us-it should teach us. What right has anyone to keep
you in a hole? God don't expect a toad to stay in a stump and starve
if it can get out. He don't ask the snakes to suffer as you do."
She had lost the threads of right and wrong out of her hands. She
was lost in a maze. She was not moved by passion. Flesh had
ceased to stir her; but there was vast power in the new and thrilling
words her deliverer spoke. He seemed to open a door for her, and
through it turrets shone and great ships crossed on dim blue seas.
"You can't live here, Aggie. You'll die in less than five years. It
would kill me to see you die here.
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