Yet that stroll across the grass of the golf links was a milestone in Rachael Breckenridge’s life, and every word that passed between Gregory and herself was graven upon her heart for all time.  The aspect of laughter, of flirtation, was utterly absent to-day.  His tone was crisp and serious, he spoke almost before they were out of the hearing of the group on the courts.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Rachael; in fact”—­he laughed briefly—­“in fact, I am talking to you all day long, these days,” he said, “arguing and consulting and advising and planning.  But before we can talk, there’s Clarence.  What about Clarence?”

Something in the gravity of his expression as their eyes met impressed Rachael as she had rarely been impressed in her life before.  He was in deadly earnest, he had planned his campaign, and he must take the first step by clearing the way.  How sure he was, how wonderfully, quietly certain of his course.

“We are facing a miserable situation, but it’s a commonplace one, after all,” said Warren Gregory, as she did not speak.  “I—­you can see the position I’m in.  I have to ask you to be free before I can move.  I can’t go to Breckenridge’s wife—–­”

The color burned in both their faces as they looked at each other.

“It is a miserable position, Greg,” Rachael said, after a moment’s silence.  “And although, as you say, it’s commonplace enough, somehow I never thought before just what this sort of thing involves!  However, the future must take care of itself.  For the present there’s only this.  I’m going to leave Clarence.”

Warren Gregory drew a long breath.

“He won’t fight it?”

“I don’t think he will.”  Rachael frowned.  “I think he’ll be willing to furnish—­the evidence.  Especially if he has no reason to suspect that I have any other plans,” she added thoughtfully.

“Then he mustn’t suspect,” the doctor said instantly.

“Nor anyone,” she finished, with a look of alarm.

“Nor anyone, of course,” he repeated.

“I don’t know that I have any other plans,” Rachael said sadly.  “I won’t think beyond that one thing.  Our marriage has been an utter and absolute failure, we are both wretched.  It must end.  I hate the fuss, of course—­”

He was watching her closely, too keenly tuned to her mood to disquiet her with any hint of the lover’s attitude now.

“And just how will you go about it?” he asked.

“I shall slip off to some quiet place, I think.  I’ll tell him before he goes away.  My attorneys will handle the matter for me—­ it’s a sickening business!” Rachael’s beautiful face expressed distaste.

“It’s done every day,” Warren Gregory said.

“Of course divorce is not a new idea to me” Rachael presently pursued.  “But it is only in the last two or three days—­for a week, perhaps—­that it has seemed to have that inevitable quality--that the-sooner-over-the-better sort of urgency.  I wonder why I didn’t do it years ago.  I shall”—­she laughed sadly—­“I shall hate myself as a divorced woman,” she said.  “It’s a survival of some old instinct, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem right.”