"My dear young lady, you were good enough to say that some paper or other credited me with a knowledge of the laws dealing with the subject of marriage. I can assure you that on that point there is no doubt whatever."
"Is that so?" The girl's lips were tightly compressed, her brows knit. "Then there are no means whatever by which a wife can be rid of a husband whom she discovers to be a rogue and a rascal?"
"Not merely because he is a rogue and a rascal; except by the act of God."
"What do you mean by the act of God?"
"If, for example, he should die."
"If he should die? I see! There is no way by which she can be released from him except by--death. Thank you, that is all I wanted to know."
She laid on his table what, to his surprise, he perceived to be a twenty-pound note.
"My dear young lady, what is this?"
"That is your fee. I don't want to occupy your time or obtain information from you for nothing."
"But you have done neither. Permit me to return you this. That is not the way in which I do business; in this instance, the honour of having been consulted by you is a sufficient payment. Before you go, however, let me give a piece of really valuable advice. If you have a friend who is in any matrimonial trouble, persuade her to see a respectable solicitor at once, and to place the whole facts before him unreservedly. He may be able to show her a way out of her difficulty which would never have occurred to her."