cious words, for she considered it due to her dignity to be
disagreeable, in that she was acceding to terms, not dictating them.

Thorne rose from his chair with a deep breath of relief. The interview
had been intolerable to him, and although he had carried his point and
acquitted himself well, his prominent feeling was one of unqualified
disgust. What a lie his married life had been! What a sepulcher
filled with dead, dry bones! For the moment all womanhood was lowered
in his eyes because of his wife's heartless selfishness. Had she shown
any feeling about the boy--any ruth, or mother-love, Thorne knew that
he would not have driven so hard a bargain; felt that he might even
have let his compassion rule his judgment. But she had shown none; all
her thought and care had been for herself, and herself alone. And for
her, and such as her, men wrecked their lives. A flood of anger at his
past folly, of resentful bitterness at the price he had been forced to
pay for it, passed over Thorne. He could scarcely constrain himself to
the formal bow which courtesy required.

As he left the room, the sound of a child's wailing came down to him,
mingled with the sound of a woman's voice soothing it. He glanced back
at his wife; she had moved nearer the fire, her fair head with its
golden glory of hair was thrown back against the dark velvet of the
chair; she was smiling and the sound of the child's grief fell on
heedless ears.

CHAPTER XV.

Thorne had even less difficulty with his legal arrangements than he had
anticipated. He had, hitherto, relegated the subject of divorce to the
limbo of things as little thought and spoken of as possible by
well-bred people. He knew nothing of the _modus operandi_, and was
surprised at the ease and celerity with which the legal machine moved.

"I'll have to prove my identity, and the truth of my statements to the
men out there, I suppose," he remarked to the lawyer, from whom he
obtained all necessary information.

The lawyer laughed; he was a Southerner by birth, and his voice was
gentle, his manner courteous.

"Of your identity, Mr. Thorne, these men will take excellent care to
inform themselves, and of your responsibility also," he answered. "For
the truth of your statements, they are apt to take your word, and the
depositions of your witnesses, without troubling themselves about
substantiating the facts. The soundness of your evidence is your
lookout, not theirs. If