He spoke with bitter agony of the injury
done him by the Earl, his wife's father, in affording a home to his
wife, when her proper home was at Loughlinter. And then declared
himself willing to take the sinning woman back to his bosom. "That
she had sinned is certain," he said; "I do not believe she has sinned
as some sin; but, whatever be her sin, it is for a man to forgive as
he hopes for forgiveness." He expatiated on the absolute and almost
divine right which it was intended that a husband should exercise
over his wife, and quoted both the Old and New Testament in proof of
his assertions. And then he went on to say that he appealed to public
sympathy, through the public press, because, owing to some gross
insufficiency in the laws of extradition, he could not call upon the
magistracy of a foreign country to restore to him his erring wife.
But he thought that public opinion, if loudly expressed, would have
an effect both upon her and upon her father, which his private words
could not produce. "I wonder very greatly that you should put such a
letter as that into type," said Phineas when he had read it all.
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