follow the dictates of his conscience, and to stretch a point in
their favor (as was sometimes done) society would not recognize
their union, and would shun them as open adulterers. In vain did his
sister-in-law urge on him that the law was absurd, and that, as
there was no blood-relationship between them, there could be nothing
criminal in their living together; he had not the moral courage to
face the cold criticism of a narrow-minded and bigoted community, and,
though mad with passionate love, he hesitated to take the fatal
plunge.

Mrs. Clarkson, however, having carried the outposts and principal
barriers successfully, was not to be thwarted by a mere matter of
sentiment. She expressed her intention of departing forthwith for
Detroit, assuring him that she would no longer remain in a country
where such intolerant bigotry existed, and instructed him, if he
loved her as he pretended, to sell his property in Canada and follow
her thither.

Clarkson was both to leave his relations and the home of his
childhood, but the temptress lured him gradually on, refusing at
times even to see a man who valued his narrow-minded friends'
opinion rather than her love, and at length he consented to sell his
farm for whatever it would bring, and to rejoin her in Detroit. This
was another piece of generalship on the part of the widow, as, did
they remain in Canada, she could not, in the event of her husband's
death hold the property which would revert to her hated sister-in-law;
but that being now converted into cash she was at liberty to
squander it during her husband's life-time, retaining the fortune
left by her first husband for the future use of herself and children.