"That is what I should like. I am astonished by what you have told me,
and am anxious to hear more about it, if to speak of it would not wound
you. Divorced! How you must have suffered! And I did not have the chance
to offer you my help--my sympathy."

"Yes, I have suffered. But that is all over now. I am a free woman. I am
beginning my life over again."

It was a beautiful afternoon, and by mutual consent, which neither put
into words, they diverged from the exact route to Selma's lodging house
and turned their steps to the open country beyond the city limits--the
picturesque dell which has since become the site of Benham's public
park. There they seated themselves where they would not be interrupted.
Selma told him on the way the few vital facts in her painful story, to
which he listened in a tense silence, broken chiefly by an occasional
ejaculation expressive of his contempt for the man who had brought such
unhappiness upon her. She let him understand, too, that her married
life, from the first, had been far less happy than he had
imagined--wretched makeshift for the true relation of husband and wife.
She spoke of her future buoyantly, yet with a touch of sadness, as
though to indicate that she was aware that the triumphs of intelligence
and individuality could not entirely be a substitute for a happy home.

"And what do you expect to do?" he inquired in a bewildered fashion, as
though her delineation of her hopes had been lost on him.

"Do? Support myself by my own exertions, as I have told you. By writing
I expect. I am doing very well already. Do you question my ability to
continue?"