"No; only too natural. Isn't it perfectly natural for an invalid like
that to want to keep her daughter with her; and isn't it perfectly
natural for a daughter, with a New England sense of duty, to yield to
her wish? You might say that she could get married and live at home, and
then she and Glendenning could both devote themselves--"

"No, no," my wife broke in, "that wouldn't do. Marriage is marriage; and
it puts the husband and wife with each other first; when it doesn't,
it's a miserable mockery."

"Even when there's a sick mother in the case?"

"A thousand sick mothers wouldn't alter the case. And that's what they
all three instinctively know, and they're doing the only thing they can
do."

"Then I don't see what we're complaining of."

"Complaining of? We're complaining of its being all wrong and--romantic.
Her mother has asked more than she had any right to ask, and Miss
Bentley has tried to do more than she can perform, and that has made
them hate each other."

"Should you say _hate_, quite?"

"It must come to that, if Mrs. Bentley lives."

"Then let us hope she--"

"My dear!" cried Mrs. March, warningly.