All the three ladies took a great interest in Maxon, but by common consent the first place was yielded to Lady Rosaline. Mrs. Ladd could fortify him, Miss Fortescue could cheer him up; they both recognized that Lady Rosaline could do something else, a subtle thing into which femininity entered more specifically; one of the things which Mrs. Maxon ought to have given him, but obviously had not; perhaps something like what Lady Rosaline herself derived from Attlebury's church services, a blend of intellectual and æsthetic satisfaction. Mrs. Ladd and Miss Fortescue were weak in the æsthetic element. Moreover there was a special bond of sympathy between Lady Rosaline and Maxon. The late Colonial Administrator had been by no means all that he should have been as a husband, and when death severed the union, it was but a very slender string that its shears cut. Mrs. Ladd and Miss Fortescue had hinted at this sad story; Lady Rosaline herself told it, though in reticent outline only, to Cyril one evening in November when he happened to have leisure to go to tea with her at her flat in Hans Place. "It's a terrible thing to have to say, but really his death--poor fellow!--ended a situation which had become almost unendurable to any woman of fine feelings. He was never rude or unkind to me, but one's pride! And the solitude of the soul, Mr. Maxon!" "Still you endured it bravely." His tone subtly asked sympathy, while his words gave it. "I wonder if I could have gone on! I should shock Mr. Attlebury, I suppose, but I thought more than once of divorce. Our home--when we were at home--had always been in Scotland. That would have made it easier, and it needn't have hurt his career anything like so much. He could just have left me and stayed away the necessary time, you see. After the last--the last trouble--he offered me that, if I wished it." "You must have been under a considerable temptation." "Yes. But then his health began to fail, and--and things were different. I had to stay and look after him; and so we became better friends at the end. I really don't bear malice now." "I think with Attlebury on that question, you know." "Yes, I suppose you do. But then, isn't there--room for doubt?" "I scarcely think so, Lady Rosaline." "Oh, but it is hard sometimes, then!" she murmured, looking into the fire. "Do you think there's nothing in the view that the offence itself is a dissolution?--That it's the offender himself--or herself--who puts asunder, not the judge, who merely deals with the legal consequences?" "No, I can't see that." He paused, frowning, then went on: "I can understand a man maintaining that it's given as a counsel of perfection, rather than an absolutely binding rule--I mean, that a man should try, but, if it proves beyond his strength, he might not be absolutely condemned." "Does it hurt you to talk about it?" "Not to people who understand." "How strange she didn't understand you better! Do you mind my saying that?"