"Well, my dear, let us talk things over. You have decided to take a very grave step. I know that without your telling me. You ought to consider carefully what will be the result. A woman who has divorced her husband cannot, for some reason, hold her head very high in England. She is, at any rate, always liable to meet people who insist on looking calmly over it, and not seeing her. That cannot be pleasant. She is thus driven into the country or else into philanthropy. I do not think either will suit you." "I know all that," said Marie. "But neither will it suit me, as you put it, to live with Jack." "No, my dear; I understand," said Lady Ardingly. "There is a choice of evils----" "Ah, that is the point," said Marie. "There is no choice." "So you think at present. I will try to show you that there is. Now think well what you are doing. You ruin yourself. That weighs nothing with you just now, because you are in pain, and nothing seems to matter when one is in pain. Then, you are utterly ruining Jack. That seems to you to matter less than nothing. Why? Because you are simply thinking about yourself, let me tell you, and your own notions of right and wrong, which are no doubt excellent." "Because I am thinking about myself?" said Marie. "Yes, of course. You do not mind ruining Jack's whole career. He has been offered the War Office. You stop all that, and, what matters more, you annihilate all that he will certainly do for the country. He is not an ordinary man; he is in some ways, perhaps, a great one. It is certain, anyhow, that the country believes in him and that your Empire needs him. But you stop all that like--" and she blew out the match with which she had lit her cigarette. Marie shook her head. "I have thought it over," she said. "It means nothing to me. I cannot go on living with him. And I will be legally set free." Lady Ardingly thought a moment. She never wasted words, and saw clearly that the needs of the Empire were a barren discussion. "Supposing you had had a child by him, my dear?" she said gently. "God has spared me that," said Marie. "We need not discuss it." Next moment Lady Ardingly could have boxed her own ears at her own stupidity. "And Maud?" she said. "Have you thought of her?" Marie pushed away the footstool on which her feet were resting. "Maud," she said--"Maud Brereton?" "Yes, my dear. She, too, is burned in your suttee. Oh, you will have a fine blaze!" For the first moment she had a spark of hope. "Maud!" said Marie again. "What has she done?" "She has committed the great crime of being the daughter of your husband's mistress," said Lady Ardingly. "Otherwise I know nothing against her. Andrew, I should imagine, will divorce his wife, if you do anything. It will be pleasant for a young girl just beginning the world! She was, I believe, perhaps going to marry Anthony Maxwell. That, too, will be off, like the British Empire. But they do not matter; only Lady Alston matters!"