“What kind of a woman? What do you mean?” cried the judge with impatience.
“The kind of woman who leaves her husband to go with another man.”
“Good Lord!” cried the judge furiously, “you came to me! It’s not your fault if Overton kept on loving you, is it? You haven’t run away with Overton, have you?”
“If I signed that paper it—it would be almost the same thing!”
He scowled at her, trying to think, seeing at last one side of the question which was not his side.
“You mean you left Faunce because you loved Overton?”
“No!” she cried sharply. “But he loves me, he wants me free. If—if I signed that paper it would be as if I wanted to be free to—to marry him!”
For the second time that day, the judge thought that he saw the light; he softened his tone.
“You do love Overton, Di, and you think it’s wrong, so your idea is to make a martyr of yourself, to refuse a divorce?”
Suddenly her face quivered; an emotion stronger and deeper than any that he had ever seen in her before, shook her from head to foot.