CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH THE LAW BETRAYS A HEART

It was still raining when she got into a carriage at Boston and drove under the elevated tracks, through the narrow, slippery business streets, to the hotel. From the windows of her room, as the night fell, she looked out across the dripping foliage of the Common. Below her, and robbed from that sacred ground, were the little granite buildings that housed the entrances to the subway, and for a long time she stood watching the people crowding into these. Most of them had homes to go to! In the gathering gloom the arc-lights shone, casting yellow streaks on the glistening pavement; wagons and carriages plunged into the maelstrom at the corner; pedestrians dodged and slipped; lightnings flashed from overhead wires, and clanging trolley cars pushed their greater bulk through the mass. And presently the higher toned and more ominous bell of an ambulance sounded on its way to the scene of an accident.

It was Mathilde who ordered her dinner and pressed her to eat. But she had no heart for food. In her bright sitting-room, with the shades tightly drawn, an inexpressible loneliness assailed her. A large engraving of a picture of a sentimental school hung on the wall: she could not bear to look at it, and yet her eyes, from time to time, were fatally drawn thither. It was of a young girl taking leave of her lover, in early Christian times, before entering the arena. It haunted Honora, and wrought upon her imagination to such a pitch that she went into her bedroom to write.

For a long time nothing more was written of the letter than "Dear Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary": what to say to them?

"I do not know what you will think of me. I do not know, to-night, what to think of myself. I have left Howard. It is not because he was cruel to me, or untrue. He does not love me, nor I him. I cannot expect you, who have known the happiness of marriage, to realize the tortures of it without love. My pain in telling you this now is all the greater because I realize your belief as to the sacredness of the tie- and it is not your fault that you did not instil that belief into me. I have had to live and to think and to suffer for myself. I do not attempt to account for my action, and I hesitate to lay the blame upon the modern conditions and atmosphere in which I lived; for I feel that, above all things, I must be honest with myself.

"My marriage with Howard was a frightful mistake, and I have grown slowly to realize it, until life with him. became insupportable. Since he does not love me, since his one interest is his business, my departure makes no great difference to him.

"Dear Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom, I realize that I owe you much-everything that I am. I do not expect you to understand or to condone what I have done. only beg that you will continue to love your niece, 66 HONORA."

I

She tried to review this letter. Incoherent though it were and incomplete, in her present state of mind she was able to add but a few words as a postscript. "I will write you my plans in a day or two, when I see my way more clearly. I would fly to you - but I cannot. I am going to get a divorce."

She sat for a time picturing the scene in the sittingroom when they should read it, and a longing which was almost irresistible seized her to go back to that shelter. One force alone held her in misery where she was, her love for Chiltern; it drew her on to suffer the horrors of exile and publicity. When she suffered most, his image rose before her, and she kissed the ring on her hand. Where was he now, on this rainy night? On the seas?

At the thought she heard again the fog-horns and the sirens.

Her sleep was fitful. Many times she went over again her talk with Howard, and she surprised herself by wondering what he had thought and felt since her departure. And ever and anon she was startled out of chimerical dreams by the clamour of bells-the trolley cars on their ceaseless round passing below. At last came the slumber of exhaustion.

It was nine o'clock when she awoke and faced the distasteful task she had set herself for the day. In her predicament she descended to the office, where the face of one of the clerks attracted her, and she waited until he was unoccupied.

"I should like you to tell me table lawyer," she said.

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the name of some repu

Certainly, Mrs. Spence," he replied, and Honora was startled at the sound of her name. She might have realized that he would know her. "I suppose a young lawyer would do if the matter is not very important.

"Oh, no!" she cried, blushing to her temples. “A young lawyer would do very well."

The clerk reflected. He glanced at Honora again, and later in the day she divined what had been going on in his mind.

"Well," he said, "there are a great many. I happen to think of Mr. Wentworth, because he was in the hotel this morning. He is in the Tremont Building."

She thanked him hurriedly, and was driven to the Tremont Building, through the soggy street that faced the still dripping trees of the Common. Mounting in the elevator, she read on the glass door amongst the names of the four members of the firm that of Alden Wentworth, and suddenly found herself face to face with the young man, in his private office. He was well groomed and deeply tanned, and he rose to meet her with a smile that revealed a line of perfect white teeth.

"How do you do, Mrs. Spence?" he said. "I did not think, when I met you at Mrs. Grenfell's, that I should see you so soon in Boston. Won't you sit down?"

Honora sat down. There seemed nothing else to do. She remembered him perfectly now, and she realized that the nimble-witted clerk had meant to send her to a gentle

man.

"I thought," she faltered, "I thought I was coming to aa stranger. They gave me your address at the hotel -when I asked for a lawyer."

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Perhaps," suggested Mr. Wentworth, delicately, "perhaps you would prefer to go to some one else. I can give

you any number of addresses, if you like."

She looked up at him gratefully. He seemed very human and understanding, - very honourable. He belonged to her generation, after all, and she feared an older man.

"If you will be kind enough to listen to me, I think I will stay here. It is only a matter of-of knowledge of the law." She looked at him again, and the pathos of her smile went straight to his heart. For Mr. Wentworth possessed that organ, although he did not wear it on hist sleeve.

He crossed the room, closed the door, and sat down beside her.

"Anything I can do," he said.

She glanced at him once more, helplessly.

"I do not know how to tell you," she began. "It all seems so dreadful." She paused, but he had the lawyer's gift of silence of sympathetic silence. "I want to get a divorce from my husband."

If Mr. Wentworth was surprised, he concealed it admirably. His attitude of sympathy did not change, but he managed to ask her, in a business-like tone which she welcomed :

"On what grounds?"

"I was going to ask you that question," said Honora. This time Mr. Wentworth was surprised-genuinely so, and he showed it.

"But, my dear Mrs. Spence," he protested, "you must remember that that I know nothing of the case. "What are the grounds one can get divorced on?" she asked.

He coloured a little under his tan.

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They are different in different states," he replied. "I think-perhaps the best way would be to read you the Massachusetts statutes.

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No-wait a moment," she said. "It's very simple, after all, what I have to tell you. I don't love my husband, and he doesn't love me, and it has become torture to live together. I have left him with his knowledge and consent, and he understands that I will get a divorce." Mr. Wentworth appeared to be pondering-perhaps not wholly on the legal aspects of the case thus naïvely presented. Whatever may have been his private comments, they were hidden. He pronounced tentatively, and a little absently, the word "desertion."

"If the case could possibly be construed as desertion on your husband's part, you could probably get a divorce in three years in Massachusetts."

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"Three years!" cried Honora, appalled. "I could never wait three years!"

She did not remark the young lawyer's smile, which revealed a greater knowledge of the world than one would have suspected. He said nothing, however.

"Three years!" she repeated. "Why, it can't be, Mr. Wentworth. There are the Waterfords- she was Mrs. Boutwell, you remember. And and Mrs. Rindge-it was scarcely a year before"

He had the grace to nod gravely, and to pretend not to notice the confusion in which she halted. Lawyers, even young ones with white teeth and clear eyes, are apt to be a little cynical. He had doubtless seen from the beginning that there was a man in the background. It was not his business to comment or to preach.

- on

"Some of the western states grant divorces on much easier terms," he said politely. "If you care to wait, I will go into our library and look up the laws of those states.

"I wish you would," answered Honora. "I don't think I could bear to spend three years in such — in such an anomalous condition. And at any rate I should much