Should She Have Left Him?

Should She Have Left Him? by Barclay North (pseudonym of William C. Hudson) presents a domestic drama of bigamy and its consequences. The narrative opens at Saratoga, where newlyweds Harry and Dorothy Trescotte are honeymooning in blissful happiness three months into their marriage. Dorothy comes from high society aristocracy; her mother Mrs. Courtenay had initially opposed the match because Trescotte's diminished income—only eight thousand a year after his father squandered the family fortune on bad securities—fell short of her expectations for her daughter's position. The central crisis emerges when a lawyer overhears discussing a tragic complication: Trescotte is unknowingly bigamously married. He innocently wed a woman years earlier in youth, then separated from her, unaware the marriage was never legally dissolved. His current marriage to Dorothy is therefore invalid. The lawyer must inform Trescotte of this calamity, which will shatter Dorothy's happiness and leave her with no legal recourse, as her husband is innocent of intentional wrongdoing.