to call in my little German neighbor, to which he replied she would probably recognize a man's right to occupy the same apartment with his wife! Still, I think he was deterred somewhat by the fear of exposure from using violence."
The recital of such sufferings and anxieties as these; endured, too, by a young and lonely woman, affected me powerfully. My excited imagination was engaged in comparing the Mrs. Greyfield I saw before me, wearing her nearly fifty years with dignity and grace, full of a calm and ripe experience, still possessing a dark and striking beauty, with the picture she had given me of herself at twenty-three. What a wonder it was that with her lively temperament either for pain or pleasure; with her beauty and her helplessness, she had come out of the furnace unscathed, as she now appeared.
"How could you," I said, with a feeling of deep disgust, "how could you allow such a man to remain in your house?"
"How could I get him out? We were legally married, so far as anybody in Oregon knew, except himself. Everybody presumed us to be living amicably together. He was careful to act the courteous gentleman to me in the presence of others. If we never went out together, it was easily explained by reference to my numerous household cares, and Benton's frequent illness. As I before said, no one could understand the position who had not been in it. I could not send him away from me; nor could I go away from him. He would have followed me, he said, to the 'ends of the earth.' Besides, where could I go? There was nothing for me but to endure until the answer to my letter came. Never was letter so anxiously desired as that one; for, of course, I fully expected that whatever news it contained, would bring relief in some way. But I had made up my mind to his guilt, rightly judging that, had he been innocent, he would either have found means to satisfy me, or have gone away and left me altogether.
