her without exciting a larger number of spiteful comments than are
allotted to her immaculate and undecreed sisters. She may not have
been able to abide the question of the Counsel who cross-examined
her, but she is certainly free, even in a wider sense than before.
She may not, perhaps, stand on so lofty a social pinnacle as the
merely-separated lady whose husband still lives, and to whose male
friends the fact that she in practically husbandless, and at the same
time disabled from marriage, gives a delightful sense both of zest and
security. On the other hand, the separated lady must be to a certain
extent circumspect, lest she should place a weapon for further
punishment in the hands of her husband. But to the Divorcée all things
apparently, are permitted.

When she left the Court in which, to use her own words, "all her
budding hopes had been crushed by the triumph of injustice," the
beautiful Divorcée (for in order to be truly typical the Divorcée is
necessarily beautiful) might have proceeded immediately to plant them
afresh in the old soil. The various gentlemen who had sustained their
reputation as men of honour by tampering on her behalf and on their
own, with the strict letter of the truth, naturally felt that the
boldness of their denials entitled them to her lasting regard, and
showed themselves ready to aid her with their counsel. But, though she
never ceased to protest her innocence of all that had been laid to her
charge and proved against her, she was sufficiently sensible to give
them to understand that for a time, at least, her path in the world
would be easier if they ceased to accompany her. They accepted the
sentence of banishment with a good grace, knowing perfectly well
that it was not for long. The Divorcée then withdrew from the flaming
placards of the daily papers, on which she had figured during the past
week, and betook herself to the seclusion of her bijou residence in