She thought long and deeply about it, and resolved that next day she would take baby to see Grace, leave it with her, and go and consult some clever lawyer as to what was possible for her to do. In her ignorance and inexperience she thought that the fact of his drinking would free her. She had yet much to learn. Next day Mr. Drayton was not out of his room, and the discreet man-servant advised her to make haste and go out before he was up. "He has been very troublesome and violent," he said, "and you had better not see him. He's got a turn against you just now, and how he got anything completely passes me. I have been watching him like a cat." In a short time Margaret, with her nurse and baby, went off to see Grace, and much to her annoyance did not find her alone. Paul Lyons was there, full of sympathy, but sympathy expressed with very little tact; and while wishing to be a real friend--indeed, longing to hold that position--he wounded Margaret's pride by the way in which he allowed himself to speak to her of her husband. She carried her point, however, and taking the train to London she went to a lawyer she had heard of, knowing no one herself. Her visit there was productive of no comfort to her. Mr. Spratt was a busy man, and looked upon all feminine clients in the light of obstructions. This one was very pretty, but an obstructionist nevertheless. "How can I serve you, madam?" were his first words, and Margaret did not quite know how to state her case. She looked at him for some moments, and his patience, not very unnaturally, began to give way. He wore blue spectacles, a circumstance which reduced every one to the same hue as regarded complexion, which was at the same time a drawback and a safeguard. Impelled to speak by his evident impatience, Margaret asked him with a trembling voice, "If a man drinks, can a wife leave him?" "By mutual consent. If he illtreats her she can perhaps do so--by arrangement. Madam," he said, softening a little--a very little--at the soft pleading tones of her voice, "all you say to me is confidential--state your own, and not an abstract case. Does your husband drink?" "Yes," said poor Margaret. "Does he illtreat you when he is drunk?" "No," said the poor child, trembling--"he--he frightens me." "Ah! you see the law recognizes cruelty, and another thing, as a cause for legal separation, or even a divorce, but the fact of a man's being a drunkard is not taken into account." "Not taken into account?" said Margaret, repeating his words in strongest surprise. "No. So little does this fact--a very terrible fact--tell against a man in the eyes of the law, that, though you are too young to have children, _supposing_ you had children, and that you left the father, the law gives the children to him and not to you--they remain with him, they do not go with you."