woman to live under the same roof with the assassin, as his wife!
"What laws, divine Lord of Heaven! That's how the brigands who make them carry them out!" clamored the indignant chorus. "And is here no help for it, my dear, no help at all?"
"He says that I could leave him after I got what they call a divorce."
"And what is a divorce, my dear?"
"It's a lawsuit that takes a long time."
A;;the women let their arms fall hopelessly. Lawsuits never came to an end, or if they did it was all the worse, because they were always decided against the innocent and the poor.
"And to get it," continued the charwoman, "I should have to prove that my husband had ill-treated me."
Lord of mercy! Hadn't the beast killed her own mother? And if that wasn't ill treatment, then what was? And didn't the very cats in the street know that he had threatened to kill her too?
"But since no one heard him.—The lawyer says the proof has to be very clear."
Something akin to a riot ensued. Some of the women insisted that they would certainly send a petition to the king himself, asking to have the pardon revoked; and they took turns at spending the night at the charwoman's house, so that the poor thing could get a chance to sleep. Fortunately, it was only three days later that the news arrived that the pardon was only a partial remission of the sentence, and that the assassin still had some years to drag his chains behind prison bars. The night after
