ic and able man. Besides your husband is bound to support you.
You must get alimony."

"I wouldn't touch a dollar of his money," Selma answered with scorn. "I
intend to support myself. I shall write--work."

"Of course you will, dear; and it will be a boon and a blessing to me to
have you in our ranks--one of the new army of self-supporting,
self-respecting women. I suppose you are right. I have never had a
sixpence. But your husband deserves to be punished. Perhaps it is
punishment enough to lose you."

"He will get over that. It is enough for me," she exclaimed, ardently,
after a dreamy pause, "that I am separated from him forever--that I am
free--free--free."

A night's sleep served to intensify Selma's determination, and she awoke
clearly of the opinion that a divorce was desirable. Why remain fettered
by a bare legal tie to one who was a husband only in name? Accordingly,
in company with Mrs. Earle, she visited the office of James O. Lyons,
and took the initiatory steps to dissolve the marriage.

Mr. Lyons was a large, full-bodied man of thirty-five, with a fat,
cleanly-shaven, cherubic countenance, an aspect of candor, and keen,
solemn eyes. His manner was impressive and slightly pontificial; his
voice resonant and engaging. He knew when to joke and when to be grave
as an owl. He wore in every-day life a shiny, black frock-coat, a
standing collar, which yawned at the throat, and a narrow, black tie.
His general effect was that of a cross between a parson and a shrewd
Yankee--a happy suggestion of righteous, plain, serious-mindedness,
protected against the wiles of human society--and able to protect
others--by a canny intelligence. For a young man he had already a
considerable clientage. A certain class of people, notably the
hard-headed, God-fearing, felt themselves safe in his hands. His
magnetic yet grave manner of conducting business pleased Benham,
attracting also both the distressed and the bilious portions of the
community, and the farmers from the surrounding country. As Mrs. Earle
informed Selma, he was in sympathy with all progressive and stimulating
ideas, and he already figured in the newspapers politically, and before
the courts as a friend of the masses, and a fluent advocate of social
reforms. His method of handling Selma's case was smooth. To begin with,
he was sympathetic within proper limits, giving her tacitly to
understand that, though as a man and brother, he deplored the necessity
of ext