Hence the Divorce Court, after some years of suspicion, has gradually come to be looked upon as one of the sacred institutions of the country.  And, speaking generally, those who make use of its facilities, however much certain of the more strait-laced may frown, are considered by society at large to have done a thing which is surprisingly right and often enviable.  The result at any rate is that the number of the divorced increases year by year, and that a lady whose failings have been established against her by a judicial decree, may be quite sure of a hand of ardent sympathisers of both sexes, amongst whom she can hold her head as high as her inclination prompts her without exciting a larger number of spiteful comments than are allotted to her immaculate and undecreed sisters.  She may not have been able to abide the question of the Counsel who cross-examined her, but she is certainly free, even in a wider sense than before.  She may not, perhaps, stand on so lofty a social pinnacle as the merely-separated lady whose husband still lives, and to whose male friends the fact that she in practically husbandless, and at the same time disabled from marriage, gives a delightful sense both of zest and security.  On the other hand, the separated lady must be to a certain extent circumspect, lest she should place a weapon for further punishment in the hands of her husband.  But to the Divorcee all things apparently, are permitted.

When she left the Court in which, to use her own words, “all her budding hopes had been crushed by the triumph of injustice,” the beautiful Divorcee (for in order to be truly typical the Divorcee is necessarily beautiful) might have proceeded immediately to plant them afresh in the old soil.  The various gentlemen who had sustained their reputation as men of honour by tampering on her behalf and on their own, with the strict letter of the truth, naturally felt that the boldness of their denials entitled them to her lasting regard, and showed themselves ready to aid her with their counsel.  But, though she never ceased to protest her innocence of all that had been laid to her charge and proved against her, she was sufficiently sensible to give them to understand that for a time, at least, her path in the world would be easier if they ceased to accompany her.  They accepted the sentence of banishment with a good grace, knowing perfectly well that it was not for long.  The Divorcee then withdrew from the flaming placards of the daily papers, on which she had figured during the past week, and betook herself to the seclusion of her bijou residence in the heart of the most fashionable quarter.  Here she pondered for a short time upon the doubtful unkindness of fate which had deprived her of a husband whom she despised, and of a home which his presence had made insupportable.  But she soon roused herself to face her new lack of responsibility, and to enjoy it.  At first, she moved cautiously.  There were numerous sympathisers who urged her to defy