The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863

"Paul, don't tempt me. I'm weak: you know that. Don't make me fouler than I am. There 's something in the world better for us than love: to try to be pure and true. You'll help me to be that, dear Paul?"—laying her hand on his arm, beseechingly. "You'll not keep me back? It's hard, you know,"—trying to smile, her lips only growing colorless.

"I'll help you, Grey,"—his face distorted, touching her fingers for an instant with an unutterable tenderness. "I knew this man was here from the first. If there was crime in our marriage, I took it on myself. I was not afraid to face hell for you, child. But, Grey," meeting her eye, "I love you. I will not risk your soul for my selfish pleasure. If it be a crime for you to stay with me, I will bid you go, and never attempt to see your face again."

"If it be a crime? You cannot doubt that, Paul!"

"I do doubt it. You can obtain a divorce,"—looking at her, with his color changing.

She pushed back the hair from her forehead. Her brain ached. Where was all the clear reasoning she had meant to meet him with?

"No, I will not do that. I know the law says it is right; but Christ forbade it. I can't argue. I only know his words."

He walked to and fro: he could not be still a minute, when in pain.

"Will you sit there?"—motioning her to a flat rock. "I want to speak to you."

She sat down,—looked at the river. If she saw that look on his face longer, she would go to him, though God's own arm stretched between them. She clenched her little hands together, something in her soul crying out, "I'm trying to do right," fiercely, to God. Martyrs for every religion have said the same, when the heat crept closer over the fagots. They were true to the best they could discover, and He asks no more of any man.

"I want you to hear me patiently," he said, standing near her, and looking down. "You said there was something better for us in the world than love. There is nothing for me. I've not been taught much about God or His ways. I thought I'd learn them through you. I've lived a coarse, selfish life. You took me out of it. I am not very selfish, loving you, little Grey,"—with a sad smile,—"for I will give you up sooner than hurt you. But if I had married you, I think it would have redeemed me. I want you," passing his hand over his forehead, uncertainly, "to look at this thing calmly. We'll put feeling aside. Because—because it matters more than life or death to me."

He was silent a moment.

"All night I have been trying to face it dispassionately, with reason. I have succeeded now."

It is a pitiful thing to see a man choke down such weakness. Grey would not see it: her eyes were fastened on her hands. He controlled himself, going on rapidly.

"I say nothing of myself. I'm only a weak, passionate man; but I mean to let your soul be pure. Yet I believe you judge wrongly in this. You think of marriage, as women in your State and in the South are taught to think, as a thing irrevocable. There are men in New England who hold other views,—pure, good men, Grey. I've tried to put you from my mind, and look at society as it is, with its corrupt, mercenary marriages, and I believe their theory is the only feasible and just,—that only those bound by secret affinity to each other are truly married."

Grey's face flushed.

"I have heard the theory, and its results,"—low.

"Because it has been seized upon as a cloak by false men. Use your reason, Grey. Do not be blinded by popular prejudice. Your fate and mine rest on this question."

"I will try to understand."

She faced him gravely.

"Whom God hath joined together no man shall put asunder. Somewhere, when our souls were made, I think, He joined us, Grey. You know that."

"I do know it."

She stood up, not shrinking from his eye now,—her womanly nature, clear and brave, looking out from hers.

"I will not speak of love: you know what that is. You know you need me: you have moulded your very thought and life in mine. It is right it should be so. God meant it. He made them male and female: taught them by that instinct of nearness to know when the two souls mated in eternity had found each other. Then the only true marriage comes,—pure, helpful, resting on God, stretching out strong, healthy aid to His humanity. The true souls, lovers, have found each other now, Grey."

He came to her,—took her hands in his.

"I know that,"—her pale face still lifted.

"Then,"—all the passion of a life in his voice,—"what shall come between us? If, in God's eye, who is Love, you love me purely, have given me the life of your life to keep, is a foul, lying vow, uttered to a man scarce made in God's image, to keep us apart? I tell you, your soul's health and mine depend on this."

She did not speak: her breath came labored and thick.

"You will come with me, Grey. You shall not go back to the slavery yonder, dragging out the bit of time God gave you, in which to develop your soul, in coddling selfish brats, and kitchen-work. There are homes where men and women enfranchise themselves from the cursed laws of society,—Phalansteries,—where each soul develops itself out of the inner centre of eternal truth and love according to its primal bent, free to yield to its instincts and affinities. I learned their theory long ago, but I never believed in it until now. We will go there, Grey. We will be governed by the laws of our own nature. It will be a free, beautiful life, my own. Music and Art and Nature shall surround us with an eternal harmony. We will have work, true work, such as suits our native power; these talents smothered in your brain and mine shall come to life in vigorous growth. Here in the world, struggling meanly for food, this cannot be. That shall be the true Utopia, Grey. Some day all mankind shall so live. We, now. "Will you come?"—drawing her softly towards him. "You do not yield?"—looking in her face. "I am sincere. I see the truth of the life-scheme of these people through my love for you. No human soul can reach its full stature, unless it be free and happy. There is no chain on women such as marriages like yours."

Still silence.

"I say that there are slaveries in society, and false marriages are the worst; and until you and all women are free from them, you never can become what God meant you to be. Do I speak truth?"

"It is true."

"You will come with me, then?"—his face growing red.

For one moment her head rested against the rock, languid and nerveless. Then she stood erect.

"I will not go, Paul."

He caught her arm; but she shook him off, and held her hand to her side to keep down an actual physical pain that some women suffer when their hearts are tried. Her eyes, it may be, were wakened into a new resolve. It was useless for him now to appeal to feeling or passion: he had left the decision to her reason,—to her faith. They were stronger than he.

"I will not go, Paul."

No answer.

"I have no words like you,"—raising her hands to her head,—"but I feel you are wrong in what you say."

She tried to collect herself, then went on.

"It is true that women sell themselves. I did it,—to escape. I was taught wrong, as girls are. It's true, Paul, that women are cramped and unhappy through false marriages, and that there are cursed laws in society that defraud the poor and the slave."

She stopped, pale and frightened, struggling to find utterance, not being used to put her thought into words. He watched her keenly.

"But it is not true, Paul,"—with choked eagerness,—"that this life was given to us only to develop our souls, to be free and happy. That will come after,—in heaven. It is given here only to those who pray for it. There's something better here."

"What?"

"To submit. It seems to me there are some great laws—for the good of all. When we break them, we must submit. Let them go over us, and try to help others,—what is that text?" holding her head a minute,—"'even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.'"

"You mean to submit?"

"I do. I married that man of my own free will: driven, maybe, by mean fears,—but—I did it. I will not forswear myself."

She gained courage as she went on.

"I believe that God Himself, and that our Lord, taught the meaning of a true marriage as you do,—that without that affinity it is none. The curse comes to every woman who disregards it. It has come to me. I'll bear it."

"Throw it off. Come out of the foul lie."

"I will live no lie, Paul. I never would have gone with John Gurney as his wife, if he had claimed me."