ven her very patience, were, I cannot help
thinking, all wrong in this special case. She quite seriously and
naively imagined that the Church of Rome disapproves of divorce; she
quite seriously and naively believed that her church could be such
a monstrous and imbecile institution as to expect her to take on the
impossible job of making Edward Ashburnham a faithful husband. She had,
as the English would say, the Nonconformist temperament. In the United
States of North America we call it the New England conscience. For, of
course, that frame of mind has been driven in on the English Catholics.
The centuries that they have gone through--centuries of blind and
malignant oppression, of ostracism from public employment, of being, as
it were, a small beleagured garrison in a hostile country, and therefore
having to act with great formality--all these things have combined to
perform that conjuring trick. And I suppose that Papists in England are
even technically Nonconformists.

Continental Papists are a dirty, jovial and unscrupulous crew. But that,
at least, lets them be opportunists. They would have fixed poor dear
Edward up all right. (Forgive my writing of these monstrous things in
this frivolous manner. If I did not I should break down and cry.) In
Milan, say, or in Paris, Leonora would have had her marriage dissolved
in six months for two hundred dollars paid in the right quarter. And
Edward would have drifted about until he became a tramp of the kind I
have suggested. Or he would have married a barmaid who would have made
him such frightful scenes in public places and would so have torn out
his moustache and left visible signs upon his face that he would have
been faithful to her for the rest of his days. That was what he wanted
to redeem him....

For, along with his passions and his shames there went the dread of
scenes in public places, of outcry, of excited physical violence; of
publicity, in short. Yes, the barmaid would have cured him. And it would
have been all the better if she drank; he would have been kept busy
looking after her.

I know that I am right in this. I know it because of the Kilsyte case.
You see, the servant girl that he then kissed was nurse in the family of
the Nonconformist head of the county--whatever that post may be called.
And that gentleman was so determined to ruin Edward, who was the
chairman of the Tory caucus, or whatever it is--that the poor dear
sufferer had the very devil of a ti