But neither you
nor your vile code nor the imbecile law you invoked to legalise the
situation really ever deprived me of my irrevocable status and
responsibility. . . . I--even I--was once--for a while--persuaded that
it did; that the laws of the land could do this--could free me from a
faithless wife, and regularise her position in your household. The laws
of the land say so, and I--I said so at last--persuaded because I
desired to be persuaded. . . . It was a lie. My wife, shamed or
unshamed, humbled or unhumbled, true to her marriage vows or false to
them, now legally the wife of another, has never ceased to be my wife.
And it is a higher law that corroborates me--higher than you can
understand--a law unwritten because axiomatic; a law governing the very
foundation of the social fabric, and on which that fabric is absolutely
dependent for its existence intact. But"--with a contemptuous
shrug--"you won't understand; all you can understand is the
gratification of your senses and the fear of something interfering with
that gratification--like death, for instance.
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