He crossed the room, closed the door, and sat down beside her.

"Anything I can do," he said.

She glanced at him once more, helplessly.

"I do not know how to tell you," she began. "It all seems so dreadful."
She paused, but he had the lawyer's gift of silence--of sympathetic
silence. "I want to get a divorce from my husband."

If Mr. Wentworth was surprised, he concealed it admirably. His attitude
of sympathy did not change, but he managed to ask her, in a business-like
tone which she welcomed:--"On what grounds?"

"I was going to ask you that question," said Honora.

This time Mr. Wentworth was surprised--genuinely so, and he showed it.

"But, my dear Mrs. Spence," he protested, "you must remember that--that I
know nothing of the case."

"What are the grounds one can get divorced on?" she asked.

He coloured a little under his tan.

"They are different in different states," he replied. "I think--perhaps
--the best way would be to read you the Massachusetts statutes."

"No--wait a moment," she said. "It's very simple, after all, what I have
to tell you. I don't love my husband, and he doesn't love me, and it has
become torture to live together. I have left him with his knowledge and
consent, and he understands that I will get a divorce."

Mr. Wentworth appeared to be pondering--perhaps not wholly on the legal
aspects of the case thus naively presented. Whatever may have been his
private comments, they were hidden. He pronounced tentatively, and a
little absently, the word "desertion."

"If the case could possibly be construed as desertion on your husband's
part, you could probably get a divorce in three years in Massachusetts."

"Three years!" cried Honora, appalled. "I could never wait three years!"

She did not remark the young lawyer's smile, which revealed a greater
knowledge of the world than one would have suspected. He said nothing,
however.

"Three years!" she repeated. "Why, it can't be, Mr. Wentworth. There are
the Waterfords--she was Mrs. Boutwell, you remember. And--and Mrs.
Rindge--it was scarcely a year before--"

He had the grace to nod gravely, and to pretend not to notice the
confusion in which she halted. Lawyers, even young ones with white teeth
and clear eyes, are apt to be a little cynical. He had doubtless seen
from the beginning that there was a man in the background. It was not his
business to comment or to preach.

"Some of the western states grant divorces on--on much easi