"She is in prison," returned the other man slowly. "I understand her time is nearly up, and I am wondering what they will do when she comes out again."
"In prison—ah yes, I recollect the affair now, though I was away at the time. Got eighteen months, didn't she?"
"Yes. It was the most painful experience I've ever had, to listen to her being sentenced." Mr. Anson's florid face grew grave. "It happened that her Counsel was a nephew of mine, and I promised to hear him handle the case. But, of course, it was hopeless from the start."
"The husband—this chap Herrick—was blameless, I suppose?"
"Quite. He knew nothing about it, though the girl tried her hardest to implicate him. He did his best, too, would have sworn anything to clear her and take the blame, but her lies were all so dreadfully patent it was no use. In the end she told the truth, thinking it would help her; but it was too late then."
"She took it badly?"
"Terribly. She cried and shrieked for mercy, fought like a tiger with the officials who tried to take her away, and screamed reproaches at her husband, till everyone was sick of the scene. Of course, she never dreamed they would send her—a lady, and a delicate bit of a girl, too—to prison like a common thief, and she completely lost her self-control when she realized what was going to happen. It was a relief to everyone when she gave one last cry and fainted right away."
"Hard lines on the husband," said Owen, reflectively.
"Deuced hard lines—and he as decent a fellow as ever stepped. Why he ever married her, God only knows. She didn't care a bit for him—wasted his money and then reviled him because he'd no more. Of course, she came of a rotten stock—wasters and gamblers every one—and this was how the hereditary taint came out in her."
"She must have served most of her sentence by now?"