consequence to himself that he had been obliged
to give up his floor in Montagu Place and settle down in the humbler and
dingier refuge of Alfred Place. Meanwhile, he had taken steps to collect
sufficient evidence for a divorce. He had not yet entered his suit, and
he felt pretty certain that when he did so, and Cora was made aware of
it in the usual manner, she would find some way of turning round and
biting him.

But the desire to be free from his trammels had taken possession of him
with irresistible force, and he was prepared to risk the worst that she
could do to him in order to accomplish it. Even as it was, he had reason
to think that she was not true to her undertaking not to slander or
molest him so long as she received her allowance. He had twice received
offensive post-cards, and though there was nothing to prove from whom
they came, he could have very little doubt that they had been posted by
her in moments when jealous rage or intoxication had got the better of
her prudence.

The scandal which began to fasten upon his name after Sydney Campion had
heard Brooke Dalton's story in the smoking-room of the Oligarchy was
almost forgotten again, though it lurked in the memory of many a
thoughtless retailer of gossip, ready to revive on the slightest
provocation.

More for Lettice's sake than his own, he lived in complete retirement,
and scarcely ever left his lodgings except to spend a few hours in the
Museum Reading Room. In this way he avoided the chance of meeting her,
as well as the chance of encountering his wretched wife, concerning
whose mode of life he had only too trustworthy evidence from the lawyer
to whom he had committed his interests.

Then there came a day when he could not deny himself the pleasure of
attending a conversazione for which tickets had been sent him by an old
friend. The subject to be discussed in the course of the evening was one
in which he was specially interested, and his main object in going was
that he might be made to forget for a few hours the misery of his
present existence, which the last of Cora's post-cards had painfully
impressed upon him.

He had not been there more than half-an-hour, when, moving with the
crowd from one room to another, he suddenly came face to face with
Lettice and the Grahams. All of them were taken by surprise, and there
was a little constraint in their greeting. Perhaps Lettice was the least
disturbed of the four--for the rest of them thought