between you and--your husband?"

She started. "No, father," she replied. Then, looking at him with
clear directness: "I've not been showing you and mother the truth
about John and me--not for a long time."

She saw that her answer relieved him. He hesitated, held out the
letter.

"The best way is for you to read it," he said. It was a letter to him
from Fanshaw. He was writing, he explained, because the discharge of a
painful duty to himself would compel him "to give pain to your daughter
whom I esteem highly," and he thought it only right "to prepare her and
her family for what was coming, in order that they might be ready to
take the action that would suggest itself." And he went on to relate
his domestic troubles and his impending suit.

"Poor Leonora!" murmured Pauline, as she finished and sat thinking of
all that Fanshaw's letter involved.

"Is it true, Polly?" asked her father.

She gave a great sigh of relief. How easy this letter had made all
that she had been dreading! "Yes--it's true," she replied. "I've known
about--about it ever since the time I came back from the East and
didn't return."

The habitual pallor of her father's face changed to gray.

"I left him, father." She lifted her head, impatient of her
stammering. A bright flush was in her face as she went on rapidly:
"And I came to-day to tell you the whole story--to be truthful and
honest again. I'm sick of deception and evasion. I can't stand it any
longer--I mustn't. I--you don't know how I've shrunk from wounding
mother and you. But I've no choice now. Father, I must be free--free!"

"And you shall be," replied her father. "He shall not wreck your life
and Gardiner's."

Pauline stared at him. "Father!" she exclaimed.

He put his arm round her and drew her gently to him.

"I know the idea is repellent," he said, as if he were trying to
persuade a child. "But it's right, Pauline. There are cases in which
not to divorce would be a sin. I hope my daughter sees that this is
one."

"I don't understand," she said confusedly. "I thought you and mother
believed divorce was dreadful--no matter what might happen."

"We did, Pauline. But we--that is, I--had never had it brought home.
A hint of this story was published just after you came last year. I
thought it false, but it set me to thinking. 'If your daughter's
husband had turned out to be as you once thought him, would it be right
for her to live on with him? To l