no sure ground to act upon, and
therefore no line to take with real effect. It was here and now that
McComas turned his round face foursquare to his uncertain accuser, and
let loose a steady, unspeaking stare from those hard blue eyes, and
declared that nothing had occurred upon which an accusation could justly
be based. He was emphatic; and he was blunt; the son and grandson of a
rustic.

Nothing, he said. Had there really been nothing? You are entitled to
ask. And I might be inclined to answer, if I knew. I simply don't. I was
in position to know something, to know much; but everything?--no.

Think, if you please, of the many domestic situations which must pass
without the full light of detailed knowledge--knowledge that comes too
late, or never comes at all. Consider the simple, willful girl who
marries impulsively on the assumption that the new acquaintance is a
bachelor. Cases have been known where it developed that he was not.
Consider the phrase of the marriage service, "if any of you know just
cause or impediment": who can declare that, in a given instance, some
impediment, moral if not legal, might not be brought against either
contracting party, however trustful the other? Consider the story of the
anxious American mother who, alarmed by reports about a fascinating
scoundrel under whom her daughter was studying music somewhere in
mid-Europe, went abroad alone to investigate. Her letter to the awaiting
father, back home, ran for page after page on non-essentials and dealt
with the real point only in a brief, embarrassed, bewildered postscript
of one line: "Oh, William, _I don't know_!" Neither do I "know." But my
account of later events may help you to decide the question for
yourselves.

Raymond had set his mind on a divorce. If grounds could not be found in
one quarter, they must be found in another. If McComas, that prime
figure, was unable to bring aid, then there must be cooeperation among
the other and lesser figures. Raymond revived and reviewed the tales
that had involved several younger men. The more he dwelt on them, the
more inflamed he became, and the more certain that he had been wronged.

I did not accompany him through his proceedings--such advice as I had
given him near the beginning was the advice simply of a friend. My own
part of the great field of the law is a relatively unimpassioned
one--office-work involving real-estate, conveyancing, loans, and the
like. I suggested to Raymond the pr