This was daring speculation; he could not have endured to hear it from Monica's lips.
But--perhaps, some day, marriage would be dissoluble at the will of either party to it.

Perhaps the man who sought to hold a woman when she no longer loved him would be regarded with contempt and condemnation.
What a simple thing marriage had always seemed to him, and how far from simple he had found it! Why, it led him to musings which overset the order of the world, and flung all ideas of religion and morality into wildest confusion.

It would not do to think like this.

He was a man wedded to a woman very difficult to manage--there was the practical upshot of the matter.

His duty was to manage her.