The girl, a few weeks before, had looked over The Rod of the Oppressor. The Rod's force had made itself felt most largely on economics; but in its blossoming it had put forth a few secondary sprigs, and one of these curled over in the direction of domestic life, of marital relation. Abner's chivalry--a chivalry totally guiltless of gallantry--had gone out to the suffering wife doomed to a lifelong yoking with a cruel, coarse-natured husband: must such a yoking be lifelong? he asked earnestly. Was it not right and just and reasonable that she should fly (with or without companion)--nor be too particular over the formalities of her departure?