la with him, but after a
while Mr Taufer listened to reason and she went back to Dapitan,
after a short stay in Manila with Rizal's family, to whom she had
carried his letter of introduction, taking considerable housekeeping
furniture with her.

Further consideration changed Rizal's opinion as to marriage, possibly
because the second time the priest may not have been so liberal in his
requirements. The mother, too, seems to have suggested that as Spanish
law had established civil marriage in the Philippines, and as the local
government had not provided any way for people to avail themselves of
the right, because the governor-general had pigeon-holed the royal
decree, it would be less sinful for the two to consider themselves
civilly married than for Rizal to do violence to his conscience
by making any sort of political retraction. Any marriage so bought
would be just as little a sacrament as an absolutely civil marriage,
and the latter was free from hypocrisy.

So as man and wife Rizal and Josefina lived together in Talisay. Father
Obach sought to prejudice public feeling in the town against the
exile for the "scandal," though other scandals happenings with less
reason were going on unrebuked. The pages of "Dapitan", which some
have considered to be the first chapter of an unfinished novel, may
reasonably be considered no more than Rizal's rejoinder to Father
Obach, written in sarcastic vein and primarily for Carnicero's
amusement, unless some date of writing earlier than this should
hereafter be found for them.

Josefina was bright, vivacious, and a welcome addition to the little
colony at Talisay, but at times Rizal had misgivings as to how it came
that this foreigner should be permitted by a suspicious and absolute
government to join him, when Filipinos, over whom the authorities
could have exercised complete control, were kept away. Josefina's
frequent visits to the convento once brought this suspicion to an open
declaration of his misgivings by Rizal, but two days of weeping upon
her part caused him to avoid the subiect thereafter. Could the exile
have seen the confidential correspondence in the secret archives
the plan would have been plain to him, for there it is suggested
that his impressionable character could best be reached through the
sufferings of his family, and that only his mother and sisters should
be allowed to visit him. Steps in this plot were the gradual pardoning
and returning of the members of