"As you please," said Dick. "You know what the subject is. I want to know----" "What, sir? You said as I was to let you know when trouble came. Now no trouble's come, and there's no need, nor ever will be. She would never take help from you." "Why? She has done me harm enough," he said. "She never says anything different. She will never take help from you. She will never hear of you, nor you of her. Never, never. Consider her as if she were dead, sir--that's all her desire." "I might have done that before I saw you. But now----" "You don't mean," said Lizzie, with a sudden eager gleam of curiosity, "that you--that after all that's come and gone----?" The look that passed over his face, a flush of indignation, a slight shudder of disgust, gave her the answer to her unspoken question. She drew herself together again, quickly, suddenly catching her breath. "I can't think," she said, "what questions there can be." "There is this," he said: "I had almost forgotten her existence--till I saw you: but now that is not possible. Look here, I may have to try and get a divorce--you know what that means--out there, not here: and she must have warning. Will you let her know?" The girl started a little, the word frightened her. "Oh, sir," she cried, "you wouldn't punish her, you wouldn't put her in prison or that? Oh, don't, sir. She would die--and you know she's not fit to die." "You mistake," said Dick; "there is no question of punishment, only to be free of each other--as if indeed, as you say, she were dead to me." "And so she is," cried Lizzie earnestly. "She never will have her name named to you, that's what she says, never if she should be ever so---- She's given you your freedom as she's taken hers, and never, never shall you hear word of her more: that is what she says." "Yet she is in England, for all she says." "Did she ever pass you her word not to come to England? But I don't say as she's in England now. Oh, it was an ill wind, sir," cried Lizzie with vehemence, "that brought you here!" "It may be so," Dick said, with a gravity that went beyond any conscious intention of regret he had. "There is but one thing now, and that is that I must be free. Let her know that I must take proceedings for divorce. I have no way of reaching her but through you."