'The husband--a man of hitherto blameless character,--young, well-born, handsome, good at his trade, and with some pretensions to the higher culture--sentenced to penal servitude for life for striking his wife, one of the senior fellows of Trinity!' The Professor's eyes flashed. 'As you are going out of office to-day, my Lady Home Secretary, and can do no more justice for a while, I will tell you the truth of that case. The wife was tired of her husband. It was a most unhappy match. She wanted to marry another man, so she trumped up the charge; that is the disgraceful truth. No fishwife of Billingsgate could have lied more impudently. He, in accordance with our, no doubt most just and well-intentioned, laws, becomes a convict for the rest of his days; she marries again. Everybody knows the truth, but nobody ventures to state it. She banged her own arm black and blue herself with the poker, and showed it in open court as the effects of his violence. As for her husband, I visited him in prison. He was calm and collected. He says that he is glad there are no children to lament his disgrace, that prison life is preferable to living any longer with such a woman, and that, on the whole, death is better than life when an innocent man can be so treated in a civilised country.' 'Poor man!' groaned Constance. 'Stay; I have a few hours yet of power. His name? she sprang to her desk. 'John Phillips--no; Phillips is the wife's name. I forgot that the sentence itself carries divorce with it. His bachelor name was Coryton.' Constance wrote rapidly. 'John Coryton. He shall be released. A free pardon from the Home Secretary cannot be appealed against. He is free.' She sprang from the table and rang the bell. Her private secretary appeared. 'This despatch to be forwarded at once,' she said. 'Not a moment's delay.' 'Constance!' The Professor seized her hand. 'You will have the thanks of every woman who knows the truth. All those who do not will curse the weakness of the Home Secretary.' 'I care not,' she said. 'I have done one just action in my short term of office. I--who looked to do so many good and just actions!' 'It is difficult, more difficult than one ever suspects, for a Minister to do good. Alas! my dear, John Coryton's case is only one of many.' 'I know,' replied Constance sighing. 'Yet what can I do! Our greatest enemies are--ourselves. Oh, Professor! when I think of the men working at their looms from morning until night, cooking the dinners and looking after the children, while the women sit about the village pump or in their clubs, to talk unmeaning politics--Tell me, logician, why our theories are all so logical, and our practice is so bad?'