They pleaded long and earnestly both then and afterward. He urged
a civil marriage, but she declared that only a marriage according
to the rites of the Church could ever purify her past and give her
back her self-respect. In this she was absolutely stubborn, yet
she did not urge upon Gambetta that he should destroy his
influence by marrying her in church.

Through all this interplay of argument and pleading and emotion
the two grew every moment more hopelessly in love. Then the woman,
with a woman's curious subtlety and indirectness, reached a
somewhat singular conclusion. She would hear nothing of a civil
marriage, because a civil marriage was no marriage in the eyes of
Pope and prelate. On the other hand, she did not wish Gambetta to
mar his political career by going through a religious ceremony.
She had heard from a priest that the Church recognized two forms
of betrothal. The usual one looked to a marriage in the future and
gave no marriage privileges until after the formal ceremony. But
there was another kind of betrothal known to the theologians as
sponsalia de praesente. According to this, if there were an actual
betrothal, the pair might have the privileges and rights of
marriage immediately, if only they sincerely meant to be married
in the future.

The eager mind of Leonie Leon caught at this bit of ecclesiastical
law and used it with great ingenuity.

"Let us," she said, "be formally betrothed by the interchange of a
ring, and let us promise each other to marry in the future. After
such a betrothal as this we shall be the same as married; for we