The d'Hautevilles now faced the consequences of the legalization of their marital struggle. From the late summer of 1839 through the winter of 1840 their legal experiences deepened through two more fateful encounters with the law. First, Ellen and Gonzalve learned more about the law itself. They discovered formal legal rules that, despite critical uncertainties, had implications as welcome for Gonzalve as they were ominous for Ellen. Legal knowledge transformed their bargaining and led directly to their next legal encounter. In a crucial reversal, the estranged pair exchanged roles as they resumed negotiating: Gonzalve issued dogmatic demands, and Ellen pleaded for compromise. In their new roles, they both experienced the law's increasing domination of their dispute as their understanding of legal rules dictated what they said and what they did. Together these next two crucial legal encounters taught Gonzalve and Ellen what it meant to bargain in the shadow of the law. Their experiences can be reconstructed as revealing illustrations of the power as well as the limits of law to influence individual consciousness and to order private bargaining.

Chronicling the d'Hautevilles’ bargaining demonstrates the importance of timing and context in legal disputes. Trapped in the law's shadow, external realities had as profound an impact on the d'Hautevilles as did their dawning understanding of internal legal rules and procedures. Ellen and Gonzalve did not act in a temporal vacuum.