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Separation and time did not weaken affection, but neither did they remove the barriers. There were weeks of doubt when Mr. Laurier was convinced that his days were numbered and that he could not fairly ask any girl to share them. Then would come days of hope and determination, and in his letters he would insist that he could and would recover. In the meantime other suitors were pressing, and particularly a physician in good practice and good circumstances in Montreal. Prudence, friends urged that it was quixotic to refuse this suitor because of an interest in a struggling country lawyer, with a most uncertain lease of life. The pressure won. The engagement of Mlle. Lafontaine and her Montreal suitor was announced. Then ten days before the marriage was to have taken place, Fate, in the cheery person of Dr. Gauthier, intervened. He telegraphed Mr. Laurier to come to Montreal at once on important business. He came, saw, conquered. The young couple determined to heed their own hearts and their own half-believed hopes. In reality Mlle. Lafontaine did not believe that their married life would be longer than a year or two, but if she could make her husband's life happier and easier for that time, she was prepared to make the venture. Action followed quickly. A special dispensation was secured, and at eight o'clock that evening, May 13, 1868, Wilfrid Laurier and Zoë Lafontaine were married. As he had to appear in court in Arthabaskaville next morning, he left at ten the same evening, returning three days later to take Mme. Laurier back to their new home. They had challenged fortune, and fortune yielded to their faith. Soon the shadows lifted, and they entered on fifty years of rare happiness and close communion. That was for the future to disclose, but already in marrying Mlle. Lafontaine, Wilfrid Laurier had achieved half his career.