call her?--living--living and undivorced, the union
of that woman's husband with another woman could be nothing but a
fictitious marriage. There is a still uglier word by which it could be
called."

"You forget," said Dick, "that Mrs. Wyld--neither bears that name nor
lays any claim to it. She put it aside long ago when she went upon her
own course. It was nothing to her. She is not of the kind that try to
keep up appearances or--anything of that sort. I'll do her that justice,
she never meant to give the--the--unfortunate fellow any trouble. She
didn't even want to stand in his way. She told him he should neither
hear of her nor see her again. She is honest, though she is---- She has
been to him as if she did not exist for years."

"Why does that matter," cried the old gentleman, "so long as she does
exist? There are women who are mad and never can be otherwise--but that
does not give their husbands a right to marry again. Divorce her, since
you are sure you can do so, and be thankful you have that remedy. I
suppose this woman is--not a lady."

"No." Dick spoke in a very low voice. He was quite cowed and subdued,
looking at his old friend with furtive looks of trouble. Though he
spoke carefully as if the case were not his own, yet he did not attempt
to correct the elder man who at once assumed it to be so. He was so
blanched and tremulous, nothing but the red of his lips showing out of
his colourless face, and all the lines drawn with inward suffering, that
he too might have been an old man. He added in the same low tones: "A
man who is divorced would be a sort of monster to them. They would never
permit--she would never listen."

"You mean--the other? well, that is possible. There is a prejudice, and
a just prejudice. So you think on the whole that to do a young lady--for
I suppose the second is in your own class--a real, an unspeakable injury
would be better than to shock her prejudices? If that is how you of the
new generation confuse what's right and wrong----"

Dick made no reply. He was not capable of self-defence, or even of
understanding the indignation he had called forth. He continued as if
only half conscious. "It need never be known. There is not a creature
who knows of it. She sent me her marriage lines. She has nothing to
prove that there ever was anything--and she would not want to prove
anything. She is as if she were dead."

"Come, sir," said the lawyer, "rouse yourself, Dick; she is not dead,