That said, he washed his hands of all further responsibility.
You two know the world, you will guess how it ended.

Quarrels in the household; the poor middle-aged woman, living in her fool's paradise, blindly true to her lover; convinced that he was foully wronged; frantic when he declared that he would not connect himself with a family which suspected him.

Ah, I have no patience when I think of it, and I almost wish I had never begun to tell the story! Do you know what he did?
She was free of course, at her age, to decide for herself; there was no controlling her.

The wedding day was fixed.

Her father had declared he would not sanction it; and her step-mother kept him to his word.
She went alone to the church, to meet her promised husband.