Eight weeks after we first met we were
married. We had a great wedding in her own house, and all her
friends were present. I was in good practice with as many patients
as I could attend to; she had a good home and we settled down to be
very happy.
For six weeks, only six weeks, I think we were so. We might have
been so for six weeks, six months, six years longer; but alas! I was
a fool I confided to her the secret of my first marriage, and
separation, and she confided the same secret to her brother, a
well-to-do wagon-maker in Newark. So far as Elizabeth was concerned,
she said she didn't care; so long as the separation was mutual and
final, since so many years had elapsed, and especially since I
hadn't seen the woman for full six years, and was not supposed to
know whether she was alive or dead, why, it was as good as a
divorce; so reasoned Elizabeth, and it was precisely my own
reasoning, and the reasoning which had got me into numberless
difficulties, to say nothing of jails and prisons. But the brother
had his doubts about it, and came and talked to me on the subject
several times. We quarrelled about it. He threatened to have me
arrested for bigamy. I told him that if he took a step in that
direction I would flog him. Then he had me brought before a justice
for threatening him, with a view to having me put under bonds to
keep the peace. I employed a lawyer who managed my case so well that
the justice concluded there was no cause of action against me.
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