--very honourable. He belonged to her generation, after all, and she
feared an older man.

"If you will be kind enough to listen to me, I think I will stay here. It
is only a matter of--of knowledge of the law." She looked at him again,
and the pathos of her smile went straight to his heart. For Mr. Wentworth
possessed that organ, although he did not wear it on his sleeve.

He crossed the room, closed the door, and sat down beside her.

"Anything I can do," he said.

She glanced at him once more, helplessly.

"I do not know how to tell you," she began. "It all seems so dreadful."
She paused, but he had the lawyer's gift of silence--of sympathetic
silence. "I want to get a divorce from my husband."

If Mr. Wentworth was surprised, he concealed it admirably. His attitude
of sympathy did not change, but he managed to ask her, in a business-like
tone which she welcomed:--"On what grounds?"

"I was going to ask you that question," said Honora.

This time Mr. Wentworth was surprised--genuinely so, and he showed it.

"But, my dear Mrs. Spence," he protested, "you must remember that--that I
know nothing of the case."

"What are the grounds one can get divorced on?" she asked.