Gregory departed without further allusion to the object of his visit. He was driven to the station in a brougham by the first groom, and sat with his hat off and his head at the open window, as if trying to get something blown out of his brain. Indeed, throughout the whole of his journey up to town he looked out of the window, and expressions half humorous and half puzzled played on his face. Like a panorama slowly unrolled, country house after country house, church after church, appeared before his eyes in the autumn sunlight, among the hedgerows and the coverts that were all brown and gold; and far away on the rising uplands the slow ploughman drove, outlined against the sky: He took a cab from the station to his solicitors' in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He was shown into a room bare of all legal accessories, except a series of Law Reports and a bunch of violets in a glass of fresh water. Edmund Paramor, the senior partner of Paramor and Herring, a clean-shaven man of sixty, with iron-grey hair brushed in a cockscomb off his forehead, greeted him with a smile. “Ah, Vigil, how are you? Up from the country?” “From Worsted Skeynes.” “Horace Pendyce is a client of mine. Well, what can we do for you? Your Society up a tree?” Gregory Vigil, in the padded leather chair that had held so many aspirants for comfort, sat a full minute without speaking; and Mr. Paramor, too, after one keen glance at his client that seemed to come from very far down in his soul, sat motionless and grave. There was at that moment something a little similar in the eyes of these two very different men, a look of kindred honesty and aspiration. Gregory spoke at last. “It's a painful subject to me.” Mr. Paramor drew a face on his blotting-paper. “I have come,” went on Gregory, “about a divorce for my ward.” “Mrs. Jaspar Bellew?” “Yes; her position is intolerable.” Mr. Paramor gave him a searching look. “Let me see: I think she and her husband have been separated for some time.” “Yes, for two years.” “You're acting with her consent, of course?” “I have spoken to her.” “You know the law of divorce, I suppose?” Gregory answered with a painful smile: “I'm not very clear about it; I hardly ever look at those cases in the paper. I hate the whole idea.” Mr. Paramor smiled again, became instantly grave, and said: “We shall want evidence of certain things. Have you got any evidence?” Gregory ran his hand through his hair. “I don't think there'll be any difficulty,” he said. “Bellew agrees--they both agree!” Mr. Paramor stared. “What's that to do with it?” Gregory caught him up. “Surely, where both parties are anxious, and there's no opposition, it can't be difficult.” “Good Lord!” said Mr. Paramor. “But I've seen Bellew; I saw him yesterday. I'm sure I can get him to admit anything you want!” Mr. Paramor drew his breath between his teeth. “Did you ever,” he said drily, “hear of what's called collusion?” Gregory got up and paced the room.