From the first the vast majority of folk had sided with Louise and
denounced Mazarine. They knew well she had married too young to be
self-seeking or intriguing; and, in any case, no woman in Askatoon or yet
in the West, could have conceived of a girl marrying "the ancient one
from the jungle," as Burlingame had called him.
Burlingame could never have been on the side of the Ten Commandments
himself, even with a sure and certain hope of happiness on earth, and in
Heaven also, guaranteed to him. Nothing could have condemned Mazarine so
utterly as the coalition between the "holy good people," as Burlingame
called them, and himself; and between the holy good people and himself
were many who in their secret hearts would never have shunned Louise if,
after the night on the prairie with Orlando, release had been found for
her in the Divorce Court. Jonas Billings had put the matter in a nutshell
when he said:
"It ain't natural, them two, at Tralee. For marrying her he ought to be
tarred and feathered, and for the way he treats her he ought to be let
loose in the ha'nts of the grizzlies. What he done to that girl is a
crime ag'in' the law. If there was any real spunk in the Methodists,
they'd spit him out like pus."
That was exactly what the Methodist body had decided to do on the very
day that Louise had fled from Tralee and the old man pursued her in the
wrong direction.
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