After the little presents came the big presents--dresses, jewellery and sums of money which she did not specify. One thought of the _rags_ that one had worn oneself during the war... No shame in telling me about _that_! She had nothing of her own except this house which the husband had left her, and Arthur would have been hurt if she had refused... So charming! So delicate--on both sides... By and by Arthur seems to have become more exacting, but the girl vowed again that she kept him at arm's length--knowing her own value, one presumes. I did not enquire very closely into this aspect of the campaign, as I knew only too well what was coming. When everything else failed, he would have to offer her marriage--by way of the Divorce Court. "And that is how things stand now?," I asked, as she came to the end of her story. "That's what he _wants_," she answered. "Oh, but I can't discuss it with you, Lady Ann." "My dear young lady," I said, "that is just what we have to do--quite dispassionately, to decide what's best. He is my husband, I love him in spite of everything; you love him too, I judge, and we have to put our heads together. You will go away with him, I take it?" It was then that she began to cry. I knew it would come sooner or later. _Convulsively_... I have told you that she was nothing more nor less than a child... "Yes," she sobbed. "To France? Next Thursday?" It was no second-sight on my part, I can assure you. Arthur had arranged to visit Paris and Lyons--on business, _I_ was told--, and the guess was natural, though Mrs. Templedown seemed to think I was some sort of witch. "Yes," she answered again. And then--really, you know, for all the world as though we were at a play: "Oh, don't torture me!" _Torture_ her...? "And then," I said, "my husband will write to tell me he loves you and has been unfaithful to me and is never coming back and I had better divorce him and he is sorry for the unhappiness he is causing me..." Those terrible letters that the papers always publish. _I_ never read them myself. In the school in which I was brought up, divorce lay beyond the pale: "Whom God hath joined..." "And then you _will_ divorce him, won't you?" she asked. Really, you know, it was almost comic! She was afraid, after _plunging_ herself in dishonour, that I might refuse to divorce Arthur so that she could never marry him. "If he asks me," I promised. "I am thinking solely of his happiness. He could not live with you unless you were married--I am not now thinking of _Right_ or _Wrong_; it would cause too great a scandal, and he would have to resign his various public positions. I only hope that the divorce will not compel him to do that, for you will both be entirely dependent on the fees that he earns. We find it hard enough to live on his income as it is, by ceaseless scraping and pinching, denying ourselves little luxuries... I hope you are a good house-keeper? ...