“So you see, the man is the top dog in a case like this, my dear, and he can compel the woman to obey him.”

“Do you mean,” I said, “that he can use force to compel her?”

“Reasonable force, yes.  I think that’s so.  And quite right, too, when you come to think of it.  The woman has entered into a serious contract, and it is the duty of the law to see that she fulfills the conditions of it.”

I remembered how little I had known of the conditions of the contract I had entered into, but I was too heart-sick and ashamed to say anything about that.

“Aw yes, that’s so,” said the advocate, “force, reasonable force!  You may say it puts a woman in a worse position as a wife than she would be if she were a mistress.  That’s true, but it’s the law, and once a woman has married a man, the only escape from this condition of submission is imprisonment.”

“Then I would rather that—­a thousand times rather,” I said, for I was hot with anger and indignation.

Again the advocate smiled indulgently, patted my arm, and answered me as if I were a child.

“Tut, tut, my dear, tut, tut!  You’ve made a marriage that is founded on suitability of position, property and education, and everything will come right by and by.  Don’t act on a fit of pique or spleen, and so destroy your happiness, and that of everybody about you.  Think of your father.  Remember what he has done to make this marriage.  I may tell you that he has paid forty thousand pounds to discharge your husband’s debts and undertaken responsibility for an allowance of six thousand a year beside.  Do you want him to lose all that money?”

I was so sick with disgust at hearing this that I could not speak, and the advocate, who, in his different way, was as dead to my real feelings as my husband had been, went on to say: 

“Come, be reasonable.  You may have suffered some slight, some indignity.  No doubt you have.  Your husband is proud and he has peculiarities of temper which we have all to make allowances for.  But even if you could establish a charge of cruelty against him and so secure a separation—­which you can’t—­what good would that do you?  None at all—­worse than none!  The financial arrangements would remain the same.  Your father would be a frightful loser.  And what would you be?  A married widow!  The worst condition in the world for a woman—­especially if she is young and attractive, and subject to temptations.  Ask anybody who knows—­anybody.”

I felt as if I would suffocate with shame.

“Come now,” said the advocate in his superior way, taking my hand as if he were going to lead me like a child to my husband, “let us put an end to this little trouble.  His lordship is downstairs and he has consented—­kindly and generously consented—­to wait an hour for your answer.  But he must leave the island by the afternoon steamer, and if. . . .”

“Then tell him he must leave it without me,” I said, as well as I could for the anger that was choking me.