confided to Selma, “and he’s a kind, devoted creature.”  When this failed, he sought Rev. Mr. Glynn as a last resort, and, after he had listened to a stern and fervid rating from the clergyman on the lust of the flesh, he found his pastor on his side.  Mr. Glynn was opposed to divorce on general ecclesiastical principles; moreover, he had been educated under the law of England, by which a woman cannot obtain a divorce from her husband for the cause of adultery unless it be coupled with cruelty—­a clever distinction between the sexes, which was doubtless intended as a cloak for occasional lapses on the part of man.  It was plain to him, as a Christian and as a hearty soul, that there had been an untoward accident—­a bestial fault, a soul-debasing carnal sin, but still an accident, and hence to be forgiven by God and woman.  It was his duty to interfere; and so, having disciplined the husband, he essayed the more delicate matter of propitiating the wife.  And he essayed it without a thought of failure.

“I’m afraid she’s determined to leave me, and that there’s not much hope,” said Babcock, despondently, as he gripped the clergyman’s hand in token of his gratitude.

“Nonsense, my man,” asserted Mr. Glynn briskly.  “All she needs is an exhortation from me, and she will take you back.”

Selma was opposed to divorce in theory.  That is, she had accepted on trust the traditional prejudice against it as she had accepted Shakespeare and Boston.  But theory stood for nothing in her regard before the crying needs of her own experience.  She had not the least intention of living with her husband again.  No one could oblige her to do that.  In addition, the law offered her a formal escape from his control and name.  Why not avail herself of it?  She recollected, besides, that her husband’s church recognized infidelity as a lawful ground of release from the so-called sacrament of marriage.  This had come into her mind as an additional sanction to her own decision.  But it had not contributed to that decision.  Consequently, when she was confronted in Mrs. Earle’s lodgings by the errand of Mr. Glynn, she felt that his coming was superfluous.  Still, she was glad of the opportunity to measure ideas with him in a thorough interview free from interruption.

Mr. Glynn’s confidence was based on his intention to appeal to the ever womanly quality of pity.  He expected to encounter some resistance, for indisputably here was a woman whose sensibilities had been justly and severely shocked—­a woman of finer tissue than her husband, as he had noted in other American couples.  She was entitled to her day in court—­to a stubborn, righteous respite of indignation.  But he expected to carry the day in the end, amid a rush of tears, with which his own might be mingled.  He trusted to what he regarded as the innate reluctance of the wife to abandon the man she loved, and to the leaven of feminine Christian charity.