“Hugh!” she exclaimed, and I was silent.  “You don’t understand,” she went on, a little breathlessly, “what I mean by punishment is deterioration.  Do you remember once, long ago, when you came to me before I was married, I said we’d both run after false gods, and that we couldn’t do without them?  Well, and now this has come; it seems so wonderful to me, coming again like that after we had passed it by, after we thought it had gone forever; it’s opened up visions for me that I never hoped to see again.  It ought to restore us, dear—­that’s what I’m trying to say—­to redeem us, to make us capable of being what we were meant to be.  If it doesn’t do that, if it isn’t doing so, it’s the most horrible of travesties, of mockeries.  If we gain life only to have it turn into death—­slow death; if we go to pieces again, utterly.  For now there’s hope.  The more I think, the more clearly I see that we can’t take any step without responsibilities.  If we take this, you’ll have me, and I’ll have you.  And if we don’t save each other—­”

“But we will,” I said.

“Ah,” she exclaimed, “if we could start new, without any past.  I married Ham with my eyes open.”

“You couldn’t know that he would become—­well, as flagrant as he is.  You didn’t really know what he was then.”

“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have anticipated it.  I can’t claim that I was deceived, that I thought my marriage was made in heaven.  I entered into a contract, and Ham has kept his part of it fairly well.  He hasn’t interfered with my freedom.  That isn’t putting it on a high plane, but there is an obligation involved.  You yourself, in your law practice, are always insisting upon the sacredness of contract as the very basis of our civilization.”

Here indeed would have been a home thrust, had I been vulnerable at the time.  So intent was I on overcoming her objections, that I resorted unwittingly to the modern argument I had more than once declared in court to be anathema-the argument of the new reform in reference to the common law and the constitution.

“A contract, no matter how seriously entered into at the time it was made, that later is seen to violate the principles of humanity should be void.  And not only this, but you didn’t consent that he should disgrace you.”

Nancy winced.

“I never told you that he paid my father’s debts, I never told anyone,” she said, in a low voice.

“Even then,” I answered after a moment, “you ought to see that it’s too terrible a price to pay for your happiness.  And Ham hasn’t ever pretended to consider you in any way.  It’s certain you didn’t agree that he should do—­what he is doing.”

“Suppose I admitted it,” she said, “there remain Maude and your children.  Their happiness, their future becomes my responsibility as well as yours.”