The truly
good must advise him or her either to keep quiet or to quit. But to
say "Keep quiet!" is to say "Don't disturb the adultery," while to
say "Quit!" is to say "Commit divorce!" which is far worse, according
to the best people.
We have always had adultery and got along beautifully, while divorce
is new and American and intolerable. Of course, one can and sometimes
does advise a legal separation, but that comes hard to minds that
face facts, since separation is only a license to--well, we all know
what separation amounts to; it really cannot be prettily described.
Charity, left alone at the three-forked road of divorce, complacency,
or separation, sank down and waited in dull misery for help or
solution, as do most of the poor wayfarers who come upon such a
break in their path of matrimony. She imagined Cheever with Zada and
wondered what peculiar incantations Zada used to hold him so long.
She wished that she had positive evidence against him--not for public
use, but as a weapon of self-defense. She felt that from his pulpit
Doctor Mosely had challenged her to a spiritual duel in that sermon
against divorce and remarriage of either guilty or innocent.
Also she began to want to get evidence to silence her own soul with.
She wanted to get over loving Cheever. To want to be cured of such
an ailment is already the beginning of cure.
Abruptly the idea came to her to put a detective on the track of
Zada and Cheever.
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