"But you are absolutely certain of your divorce! I've consulted—of course without mentioning names—"
She interrupted him, with a melancholy smile: "Ah, so have I. The divorce would be easy enough to get, if they ever let it come into the courts."
"How on earth can they prevent that?"
"I don't know; my never knowing how they will do things is one of the secrets of their power."
"Their power? What power?" he broke in with irrepressible contempt. "Who are these bogeys whose machinations are going to arrest the course of justice in a—comparatively—civilized country? You've told me yourself that Monsieur de Malrive is the least likely to give you trouble; and the others are his uncle the abbé, his mother and sister. That kind of a syndicate doesn't scare me much. A priest and two women contra mundum!"
She shook her head. "Not contra mundum, but with it, their whole world is behind them. It's that mysterious solidarity that you can't understand. One doesn't know how far they may reach, or in how many directions. I have never known. They have always cropped up where I least expected them."
Before this persistency of negation Durham's buoyancy began to flag, but his determination grew the more fixed.
"Well, then, supposing them to possess these supernatural powers; do you think it's to people of that kind that I'll ever consent to give you up?"
She raised a half-smiling glance of protest. "Oh, they're not wantonly wicked. They'll leave me alone as long as—"
"As I do?" he interrupted. "Do you want me to leave you alone? Was that what you brought me here to tell me?"