d they trouble me a little. It is only because I am so utterly
devoted to you that I wish you to know me as I am. I have always had
queer views, and although much has happened to change me since I have
known and loved you, I am not quite sure how much those views have
changed. Love," she added, "plays such havoc with one's opinions."

She returned his smile, but with knitted brows.

"It's really serious--you needn't laugh. And it's only fair to you to
let you know the kind of a wife you are getting, before it is too late.
For instance, I believe in divorce, although I can't imagine it for us.
One never can, I suppose, in this condition--that's the trouble. I have
seen so many immoral marriages that I can't think God intends people
to live degraded. And I'm sick and tired of the argument that an
indissoluble marriage under all conditions is good for society. That
a man or woman, the units of society, should violate the divine in
themselves for the sake of society is absurd. They are merely setting an
example to their children to do the same thing, which means that society
in that respect will never get any better. In this love that has come
to us we have achieved an ideal which I have never thought to reach.
Oh, John, I'm sure you won't misunderstand me when I say that I would
rather die than have to lower it."

"No," he answered, "I shall not misunderstand you."

"Even though it is so difficult to put into words what I mean. I don't
feel that we really need the marriage service, since God has already
joined us together. And it is not through our own wills, somehow, but
through his. Divorce would not only be a crime against the spirit, it
would be an impossibility while we feel as we do. But if love should
cease, then God himself would have divorced us, punished us by taking
away a priceless gift of which we were not worthy. He would have shut
the gates of Eden in our faces because we had sinned against the Spirit.
It would be quite as true to say 'whom God has put asunder no man may
join together.' Am I hurting you?"

Her hand was on the arm of his chair, and the act of laying his own on it
was an assurance stronger than words. Alison sighed.

"Yes, I believed you would understand, even though I expressed myself
badly,--that you would help me, that you have found a solution. I used
to regard the marriage service as a compromise, as a lowering of the
ideal, as something mechanical and rational put in the place of th