ell
smoking room which Howard Spence had delivered, and which had grated on
Boston sensibility. "It is only right to tell you that our firm does
not--does not--take divorce cases--as a rule. Not that we are taking this
one," he added hurriedly. "But as a friend--"

"Oh, thank you!" said Honora.

"Merely as a friend who would be glad to do you a service," he continued,
"I will, during the day, try to get you the name of--of as reputable a
lawyer as possible in that place."

And Mr. Wentworth paused, as red as though he had asked her to marry him.

"How good of you!" she cried. "I shall be at the Touraine until this
evening."

He escorted her through the corridor, bowed her into the elevator, and
her spirits had risen perceptibly as she got into her cab and returned to
the hotel. There, she studied railroad folders. One confidant was enough,
and she dared not even ask the head porter the way to a locality
where--it was well known--divorces were sold across a counter. And as she
worked over the intricacies of this problem the word her husband had
applied to her action recurred to her--precipitate. No doubt Mr.
Wentworth, too, had thought her precipitate. Nearly every important act
of her life had been precipitate. But she was conscious in this instance
of no regret. Delay, she felt, would have killed her. Let her exile begin
at once.

She had scarcely finished luncheon when Mr. Wentworth was announced. For
reasons best known to himself he had come in person; and he handed her,
written on a card, the name of the Honourable David Beckwith.

"I'll have to confess I don't know much about him, Mrs. Spence," he said,
"except that he has been in Congress, and is one of the prominent lawyers
of that state."

The gift of enlisting sympathy and assistance was peculiarly Honora's.
And if some one had predicted that morning to Mr. Wentworth that before
nightfall he would not only have put a lady in distress on the highroad
to obtaining a western divorce (which he had hitherto looked upon as
disgraceful), but that likewise he would miss his train for Pride's
Crossing, buy the lady's tickets, and see her off at the South Station
for Chicago, he would have regarded the prophet as a lunatic. But that is
precisely what Mr. Wentworth did. And when, as her train pulled out,
Honora bade him goodby, she felt the tug at her heartstrings which comes
at parting with an old friend.

"And anything I can do for you here in the East, while