and for every honourable man that must be enough. Don't bewilder yourself
with sophistries. Why should you want to marry--again? You have had
enough of it, I should think; or else divorce her, since you can. You
may be able to do that secretly as well as the marriage. Why not?"

Dick said nothing, but shook his head. He was so completely cast down
that he had not a word to say for himself. How he could have supposed
that a dispassionate man could have taken his side and seen with his
eyes in such a matter, it is hard to say. He had thought of it so much
that all the lines had got blurred to him, and right and wrong had come
to seem relative terms. "What harm would it do?" he said to himself,
scarcely aware he was speaking aloud. "No one would be wronged, and they
would never know. How could they know? it would be impossible. Whereas,
on the other side, there must be a great scandal and raking up of
everything, and betrayal--to every one." He shuddered as he spoke.

"Whereas, on the other side," said the old lawyer, "there would be a
betrayal--very much more serious. Suppose you were to die, and that then
it were to be found out (in the long run everything is found out) that
your wife was not your wife, and her children---- Come, Dick, you never
can have contemplated a blackguard act like that to an unsuspecting
girl!"

"Sir!" cried Dick, starting to his feet. But he could not maintain that
resentful attitude. He sank down in the chair again, and said with a
groan, "What am I to do?"

"There is only one thing for you to do: but it is very clear. Either
explain the real circumstances to the young lady or her friends--or
without any explanation give up seeing her. In any case it is evident
that the connection must be cut at once. Of course if she knows the true
state of the case, and that you are a married man, she will do that. And
if you shrink from explanations, _you_ must do it without an hour's
delay."

Dick made no reply. He sat for a time with his head in his hands: and
then rose up with a dazed look, as if he scarcely knew what he was
about. "Good-bye," he said, "and thank you. I'll--tell Tom--what you
said."

"Do," said the old lawyer, getting up. He took Dick's hand and wrung it
in his own with a pressure that, though the thin old fingers had but
little force, was painful in its energy. "You don't ask my silence,
but I'll promise it you--except in one contingency," and here he wrung
Dick's hand again. "Sho