"I know, my child, that your husband has been false to you with your cousin Paul's wife."
"And both Paul and I are to obtain a divorce."
Mrs. Wilson winced. "Your uncle intimated as much in the case of Paul. I had hoped you might not think it obligatory to break absolutely with your husband. Or, rather, Lucille, my mind was so full of distress for you that I did not look beyond the dreadful present. You do not know how my heart bleeds for you, dear."
As she spoke, Mrs. Wilson left her seat, and kneeling beside the lounge, put her arms around her daughter's neck. Lucille, grateful for the sympathy, raised herself to receive and return the embrace, but her speech was calm.
"It is a mortification, of course; it would be to any woman. If he had been faithful to me, I would never have left him. But we were mismated from the first. We found out six months after our marriage that we bored each other; and then we drifted apart. So there would be no use trying to patch it up. We should only lead a dog and cat life. Besides—-" she paused an instant, then interjected, "I hoped Paul had broken this to you, mamma—I want to be free because I am going to marry again."
Mrs. Wilson sprang back as though she had been buffeted. "Marry again?" she gasped.
Lucille spoke softly but with firmness. "I am going to marry Mr. Bradbury Nicholson of New York." She added a few words as to his identity, then with an emphasis intended to express the ardor of a soul which has come to its own at last, exclaimed:
"I'm deeply in love with him, mamma; and I never was with Clarence. I thought I was, but I wasn't. This time it's the real thing."
Mrs. Wilson rose and returning to her desk rested her head again upon her supported elbow. She was stunned. The shock of the announcement was such that she did not attempt to speak. But Lucille, having begun, was evidently bent on making a clean breast of her affairs.
"So I am on my way to Sioux Falls to obtain a divorce."