That a divorced daughter-in-law would be none too welcome in that stately, old-fashioned family, Mrs. Thorne was well aware.  Perhaps it would be as well to be unhampered by such a forcible reminder of her former state as the child, while she was winning the Cumberland heart and softening the Cumberland prejudice.  Cecil, she knew already, regarded the baby with scant favor, and would be unfeignedly rejoiced to be quit of him.  On the whole, Nesbit was behaving well to her.  She had expected far more difficulty, infinitely more bitterness, for, like the world, she gave her husband credit for the scruples of his father’s faith.  Her heart softened toward him a little for the first time in years—­or would have softened, but for the blow he had dealt her egregious self-love in letting her go so easily.

She signified her acceptance of his proposal in a few brusque, ungracious 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.