d intact she had kept
it. Spotless and intact no doubt it would be kept when, in six months'
time, she in turn would hand it over to Winny Dymond, to Ranny's second
wife.

He had only just told her.

That was what hurt her most, that she had only just been told, when for
more than two years he had been thinking of it. It was no use saying
that he couldn't have told her before, because he wasn't free. He wasn't
free now; not properly, like a widower.

That he would, after all, get rid of poor Violet, who hadn't, in all
those years, troubled him or done him any harm, _that_ had been a blow
to her. She hadn't believed it possible. She had thought the question of
divorce had been settled once for all, five years ago, by his Uncle
Randall. And John Randall in the meanwhile had justified his claim to
be heard, and his right to settle things. He had canceled the debt that
poor Fulleymore had owed him. To be sure, he could afford it. He was
more prosperous and prominent than ever. He was, therefore, less than
ever likely to approve of the divorce.

If the idea of divorce had been appalling five years ago, it was still
more appalling now. Since, after all, poor Violet had removed herself so
far and kept so quiet, the scandal of her original disappearance had
somehow diminished with every year, while, proportionately, with every
year, the scandal, the indecency, the horror of the Divorce Court had
increased, until now it seemed to be a monstrous thing.

And that Ranny should have chosen this time of all times! When they'd
paid off all the creditors and got clear, and stood respected and
respectable again. As if his poor father's insolvency, which, after all,
he couldn't help (since it was the Drug Stores that had ruined him), as
if that wasn't enough disgrace for one family, he must needs go and rake
up all that awful shame and trouble, after all these years, when
everybody had forgotten that there _had_ been any trouble and any shame.

That was what Mrs. Ransome found so hard to bear. And that she had been
deceived; that he should have let her go on thinking that it wasn't
possible, up to the last minute (it was Saturday and he was going to the
lawyer on Monday), she who had the first right to be told.

All these years he had deceived her. All these years he had meant to do
it the very minute he had got his rise.

For Ransome had attained the summit of his ambition. He was now a petty
cashier with a pen all to himself a