ut it won't stand as it is,
or as you want it to stand, because Mrs. Mazarine has her legal claims
in spite of it! She's got a wife's dower-rights according to the law.
That's one-third of your property. It's the law of the land, and you
can't sign it away from her, Mr. Mazarine."

The old man's face darkened still more; his crooked fingers twisted in
his beard.

"I see you forgot that," added the lawyer. "There's only one way to
dispossess her, and that's to put her through Divorce--if you think
you can. Of course this document'll stand as far as it goes, and
it's perfectly legal, but it isn't what you intend, and she'd get her
one-third in spite of it."

"I'll come back to-morrow," said the old man, rising to his feet. "You
make it out, and I'll come back and sign it to-morrow. I'll make a sure
thing of so much, anyway. The divorce'll settle the rest. You have it
ready at noon to-morrow, and you can start divorce proceedings to-morrow
too. There's plenty of evidence. She run away from me to go to him. She
stayed with him a whole night on the prairie. I want the divorce, and I
can get the evidence. Everybody knows. This is the Lord's business, and
I mean to see it through. Shame has come to the house of a servant of
the Lord, and there must be purging. In the days of David she would have
been stoned to death, and not so far back as that, either."

A moment afterwards he was gone, slamming the door behind him. His blood
was up-a turgid, angry flood almost bursting his veins. He now made his
way to the house of the Methodist minister. There he announced that
if he was disciplined at Quarterly Meeting, as was talked about in the
streets, he would go to law against every class-leader for defamation of
character.

By the time this was done the evening was well advanced. He did not
leave Askatoon until the moment which coincided with that in which
Orlando left Nolan Doyle's garden and took the trail to Slow Down Ranch.
Orlando would strike the trail from Askatoon to Tralee at a point where
another trail also joined.

Mazarine drove fast through the town, as though eager to put it behind
him, but when he reached the trail on the prairie he slackened his pace,
and drove steadily homewards, lost in the darkest reflections he
had ever known; and that was saying much. The reins lay loose in his
fingers, and he became so absorbed that he was conscious of nothing save
movement.

The heart of Black Brian, the King, of whom