"Those were his very words, my dear. And that cool! I stared at him. I'd no mind to make excuses for you, Gawd knows; but, for all that, one's own flesh and blood wasn't going to be talked about like niggers in _my_ hearing. When I got my wits together, I said, 'It seems to me I'd be sorrier for you, Mr. Heriot, if you took it different.' 'Oh,' said he in his superior way, 'would you? We needn't discuss my feelings, madam. Perhaps you'll stay and dine?' I was so angry that I couldn't be civil to him. 'I thank you,' I said, 'I will not stay and dine. And I take the opportunity, Mr. Heriot, of telling you you're a brute!' With that I came away; but there was much more in between that I've forgotten. About the divorce it was. He said he had 'a duty to himself,' and that the man could marry you when you were divorced; which I suppose he _would_ have done if he had lived? though whether your sin would have been any less, my dear, if an archbishop had performed the ceremony is a question that I couldn't undertake to decide. You must begin your life afresh, now that it's all 'absolute'--which I learn is the proper term--and you'll never be in a newspaper any more. Pray to Heaven for aid, and take heart of grace! And if it will relieve you to speak sometimes of those sinful months with--with the other one in Paris, why, you shall talk about them to me, my dear, and I won't reproach you." Mamie was no longer listening. An emotion that she did not seek to define was roused in her as she wondered if Heriot could indeed have taken the blow so stoically as her aunt declared. She scarcely knew whether she wished to put faith in his demeanour or not, but the subject was one that filled her thoughts long after Mrs. Baines's departure. It was one to which she constantly recurred. With less delay than might have been anticipated, the widow found a house in Balham to fulfil her requirements, and the removal was effected several months before No. 20, Lavender Street was sub-let.