dead. The moment the decree nisi was pronounced he left the Courts of
Justice.

Four hours until he became public property! 'Solicitor's divorce suit!'
A surly, dogged anger replaced that dead feeling within him. 'Damn them
all!' he thought; 'I won't run away. I'll act as if nothing had
happened.' And in the sweltering heat of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill
he walked all the way to his City Club, lunched, and went back to his
office. He worked there stolidly throughout the afternoon.

On his way out he saw that his clerks knew, and answered their
involuntary glances with a look so sardonic that they were immediately
withdrawn. In front of St. Paul's, he stopped to buy the most
gentlemanly of the evening papers. Yes! there he was! 'Well-known
solicitor's divorce. Cousin co-respondent. Damages given to the
blind'--so, they had got that in! At every other face, he thought: 'I
wonder if you know!' And suddenly he felt queer, as if something were
racing round in his head.

What was this? He was letting it get hold of him! He mustn't! He would
be ill. He mustn't think! He would get down to the river and row about,
and fish. 'I'm not going to be laid up,' he thought.

It flashed across him that he had something of importance to do before he
went out of town. Madame Lamotte! He must explain the Law. Another six
months before he was really free! Only he did not want to see Annette!
And he passed his hand over the top of his head--it was very hot.

He branched off through Covent Garden. On this sultry day of late July
the garbage-tainted air of the old market offended him, and Soho seemed
more than ever the disenchanted home of rapscallionism. Alone, the
Restaurant Bretagne, neat, daintily painted, with its blue tubs and the
dwarf trees therein, retained an aloof and Frenchified self-respect. It
was the slack hour, and pale trim waitresses were preparing the little
tables for dinner. Soames went through into the private part. To his
discomfiture Annette answered his knock. She, too, looked pale and
dragged down by the heat.

"You are quite a stranger," she said languidly.

Soames smiled.

"I haven't wished to be; I've been busy."

"Where's your mother, Annette? I've got some news for her."

"Mother is not in."

It seemed to Soames that she looked at him in a queer way. What did she
know? How much had her mother told her? The worry of trying to make
that out gave him an alarming feeling