The solicitor held up his hand. “That’ll do. It’s not for you to adopt that tone in speaking to me, you know. Please to remember that I’m Elsie’s husband.” “Look here,” Morrison began again, “I’m perfectly ready to make a clean breast of it. I do love Elsie. Her and me were just pals at first, and then I suppose I didn’t exactly realise where I was drifting. But I’m free to confess that I lost my head one--one evening a little while ago--and I told her I loved her.” He glanced at Elsie, as though for a further cue. “And of course she told you that she was a pure woman, and a loving wife, and you must never speak like that again?” sneered Horace Williams. “Elsie, don’t let him speak like that.... Tell him!” urged Morrison. “I don’t need any telling,” Williams retorted smoothly. “She thinks she’s in love with you, of course.” “I am in love with Leslie,” said Elsie suddenly. “And if you did the decent thing, Horace, you’d set me free to marry him. You and me have never been happy together. I didn’t ever ought to have married you, but I was a young fool.” “Understand this, the pair of you,” said the little solicitor clearly and deliberately. “I shall never set you free, as you call it. You’ve married me, and you’ve got to stay with me. As for you,” he turned to Leslie Morrison, “you can leave my house. And understand clearly that I won’t have you inside it again. And if I catch you speaking to my wife again, or meeting her, or having anything whatsoever to do with her, it’ll be the worse for you.” Morrison took a sudden step forward, his hands clenched, and Elsie screamed, but Horace Williams stood his ground. “I’m well within my rights, and you know it,” he declared. “I could horsewhip you, in fact, and if you were fool enough to bring a case for assault it’d go against you. _Clear out!_ That’s my last word to you.” “Will you let Elsie have a divorce?” “No, I won’t.” “Will you let her have a legal separation, then? You’ve her own word for it that she’s not happy with you. I’m not thinking of myself, but you can’t have the cruelty to keep her tied to you when she’s miserable. Let her have her freedom.” For all answer, Williams pointed to the door. The expression of his face had not altered by a hair’s-breadth. Morrison turned to Elsie, white and tense. “Elsie, you hear what he says. What d’you want me to do?” Elsie had lost her nerve. She began to cry hysterically. Instead of answering Morrison’s appeal, she turned to her husband. “Why can’t you let us just be pals, Leslie and me?” she sobbed. “You bring your horrid, mean jealousy into everything. I s’pose you don’t grudge me having a friend of my own age, do you?”