This, too, was slurred and mumbled. She found herself, trembling,
answering questions now from her counsel, now from the judge; and it
is to be doubted to this day whether either heard her answers. Most
convenient and considerate questions they were. When and where she was
married, how long she had lived with her husband, what happened when
they ceased to live together, and had he failed ever since to contribute
to her support? Mercifully, Mr. Beckwith was in the habit of coaching
his words beforehand. A reputable citizen of Salomon City was produced
to prove her residence, and somebody cried out something, not loudly,
in which she heard the name of Spence mentioned twice. The judge said,
"Take your decree," and picked up a roll of papers and walked away.
Her knees became weak, she looked around her dizzily, and beheld the
triumphant professional smile of the Honourable Dave Beckwith.

"It didn't hurt much, did it?" he asked. "Allow me to congratulate you."

"Is it--is it all over?" she said, quite dazed.

"Just like that," he said. "You're free."

"Free!" The word rang in her ears as she drove back to the little house
that had been her home. The Honourable Dave lifted his felt hat as he
handed her out of the carriage, and said he would call again in the
evening to see if he could do anything further for her. Mathilde, who
had been watching from the window, opened the door, and led her mistress
into the parlour.

"It's--it's all over, Mathilde," she said.

"Mon dieu, madame," said Mathilde, "c'est simple comme bonjour!"

Volume 7.

CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH IT IS ALL DONE OVER AGAIN

All morning she had gazed on the shining reaches of the Hudson, their
colour deepening to blue as she neared the sea. A gold-bound volume of
Shelley, with his name on the fly-leaf, lay in her lap. And two lines
she repeated softly to herself--two lines that held a vision:

"He was as the sun in his fierce youth,
As terrible and lovely as a tempest;"

She summoned him out of the chaos of the past, and the past became the
present, and he stood before her as though in the flesh. Nay, she heard
his voice, his laugh, she even recognized again the smouldering flames
in his eyes as he glanced into hers, and his characteristic manners and
gestures. Honora wondered. In vain, during those long months of exile
had she tried to reconstruct him thus the vision in its entirety would
not come: rare, fleeting, partial, an