“So I said to myself:  now the places and the circumstances of this petition unquestionably were so.  All the Sabres in the world couldn’t deny that.  Let his wife go ahead and prove them to the satisfaction of the Court, if she can.  If she can’t; good; no harm done that he wasn’t there to be bludgeoned anew.  If she can satisfy the court, well, I say to you, my friend, as I said then to myself, and I say it deliberately:  ’If she can satisfy the court—­good again, better, excellent.  He’s free:  he’s free from a bond intolerable to both of them.’

“Right.  The hearing came on and his wife did satisfy the Court.  She got her decree.  He’s free....  That’s that....

“Yesterday I took my courage in both hands and told him.  Yesterday Ormond Clive said Sabre might be cautiously approached about things.  For three weeks past Clive’s not let us—­me or that Lady Tybar—­see him.  Yesterday we were permitted again; and I took steps to be there first.  I told him.  There was one thing I’d rather prayed for to help me in the telling, and it came off—­he didn’t remember!  He’d come out of that place where he had been with only a confused recollection of all that had happened to him before he went in.  Like a fearful nightmare that in the morning one remembers only vaguely and in bits.  Vaguely and in bits he remembered the inquest horror, and vaguely and in bits he remembered the divorce matter—­and he thought the one was as much over as the other.  He thought he had been divorced.  I said to him, taking it as the easiest way of breaking my news, I said to him, ’You know your wife’s divorced you, old man?’ He said painfully, ’Yes, I know.  I remember that.’

“I could have stood on my head and waved my heels with relief and joy.  Of course it will come back to him in time that the business hadn’t happened before his illness.  In time he’ll begin to grope after detailed recollection, and he’ll begin to realise that he never did go through it and that it must have happened while he was ill.  Well, I don’t funk that.  That won’t happen yet awhile; and when it does happen I’m confident enough that something else will have happened meanwhile and that he’ll see, and thank God for it, that what is is best.  There’ll be another thing too.  He’ll find his wife has married again.  Yes, fact!  I heard in a roundabout way that she’s going to marry an old neighbour of theirs, chap called Major Millett, Hopscotch Millett, old Sabre used to call him.  However, that’s not the thing—­though it would be a complication—­that I mean will have happened and will make him see, and thank God for, that what is is best.  What do I mean?  What will have happened meanwhile?  Well, that’s telling; and I don’t feel it’s quite mine to tell.  Tell you what, you come around and have a look at the old chap to-morrow.  I dare bet he’ll be on the road towards it by then and perhaps tell us himself.  As I was coming away yesterday I passed that Lady Tybar going in, and I told her what I’d been saying to him and what he remembered and what he didn’t remember....  What’s that got to do with it?  Well, you wait and see, my boy.  You wait and see.  I’ll tell you this—­come on, let’s be getting off to this play or we’ll be late—­I tell you this, it’s my belief of old Sabre that, after all he’s been through,