What that career was to be she had not the slightest idea; she had not been able to give it an instant's thought, although Sir Nugent Uffington had more than once tried to direct her attention to the necessity of settling her plans. It was a delicate subject to touch upon, and Uffington could do no more than give a hint, which May invariably avoided taking; she knew that she had an income of her own, which would suffice to keep her at least in such comfort as she was enjoying in Podbury-street, and beyond that she declined to think. It was all one to her, she felt, how she lived or where, so long only as she could enter upon an entirely new phase of existence in some place where she herself, her history, and her troubles were unknown. Uffington's teaching had had this effect upon her, that she completely despised the people with whom her youth had been passed, and was ashamed of herself for having wasted and misused such precious hours. For the rest, the future was to her a blank, without scheme and without hope. Mr. Patten, the worthy old attorney who had the conduct of her case, and who throughout had treated her with much fatherly consideration, had promised to come down as soon as the decision had been given by the court and acquaint her with it. 'Not that there will be any doubt as to the result, Lady Forestfield,' he had said. 'By your own wish we do not appear against the application, and therein I think you are wise, as no demonstration on our part would, I fear, have any effect. I am given to understand that no defence either will be made on the part of the co-respondent; but that of course is no affair of yours. However, I will come down after the sitting of the court, and set your mind at rest.' 'Set your mind at rest' was the phrase which worthy Mr. Patten used, though never perhaps was one less applicable. It would have taken more than lay in the attorney's power to set Lady Forestfield's mind at rest; for never since the time when she was served with the citation had she been in so excited a state as on that day. It was not that she had any doubt; even had it been possible that the law could have been so strained as to refuse her husband the relief which he sought, it would have been no satisfaction to her. In her own conscience, which for the first time began to play some part in the scheme of her life, she knew herself to be guilty, and felt that retribution was due. All that she desired ardently was to know that the sentence had been pronounced, to feel that her doom had been publicly spoken, and that thenceforward she would be unheard of by the world.