“I do not know what you will think of me.  I do not know, to-night, what to think of myself.  I have left Howard.  It is not because he was cruel to me, or untrue.  He does not love me, nor I him.  I cannot expect you, who have known the happiness of marriage, to realize the tortures of it without love.  My pain in telling you this now is all the greater because I realize your belief as to the sacredness of the tie—­and it is not your fault that you did not instil that belief into me.  I have had to live and to think and to suffer for myself.  I do not attempt to account for my action, and I hesitate to lay the blame upon the modern conditions and atmosphere in which I lived; for I feel that, above all things, I must be honest with myself.

“My marriage with Howard was a frightful mistake, and I have grown slowly to realize it, until life with him became insupportable.  Since he does not love me, since his one interest is his business, my departure makes no great difference to him.

   “Dear Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom, I realize that I owe you much
  —­everything that I am.  I do not expect you to understand or to
   condone what I have done.  I only beg that you will continue to
  —­love your niece,

“Honora.”

She tried to review this letter.  Incoherent though it were and incomplete, in her present state of mind she was able to add but a few words as a postscript.  “I will write you my plans in a day or two, when I see my way more clearly.  I would fly to you—­but I cannot.  I am going to get a divorce.”

She sat for a time picturing the scene in the sitting-room when they should read it, and a longing which was almost irresistible seized her to go back to that shelter.  One force alone held her in misery where she was,—­her love for Chiltern; it drew her on to suffer the horrors of exile and publicity.  When she suffered most, his image rose before her, and she kissed the ring on her hand.  Where was he now, on this rainy night?  On the seas?

At the thought she heard again the fog-horns and the sirens.

Her sleep was fitful.  Many times she went over again her talk with Howard, and she surprised herself by wondering what he had thought and felt since her departure.  And ever and anon she was startled out of chimerical dreams by the clamour of bells-the trolley cars on their ceaseless round passing below.  At last came the slumber of exhaustion.

It was nine o’clock when she awoke and faced the distasteful task she had set herself for the day.  In her predicament she descended to the office, where the face of one of the clerks attracted her, and she waited until he was unoccupied.

“I should like you to tell me—­the name of some reputable lawyer,” she said.

“Certainly, Mrs. Spence,” he replied, and Honora was startled at the sound of her name.  She might have realized that he would know her.  “I suppose a young lawyer would do—­if the matter is not very important.”