Everyone in the house knew that this prohibition was by no means unnecessary.
“Well, Mary, you must look after him while I am away. I am going up to London on business. See that he has what he likes.” She pressed five shillings into the cook’s hand, feeling the glow of accomplishment of the whole duty of a married woman and picturesque forgiveness of insult and injuries.
Her packing was done. It was half-past eleven. She had a whole hour before her.
Of the laws of her country she had about as much practical knowledge as most women—that is to say none at all! She was full of the proposition she had made to Mortimer, of a bloodless duel, an amicable separation, a social catastrophe which should affect herself only, leaving Rivers untouched. The engagement between Rivers and Egidia, which she was going to London to suggest, would surely tell very much in favour of her plan, but she must neglect nothing, leave no stone unturned for the accomplishment of his salvation. She had made up her mind to work this thing for Rivers, to be his diplomatic angel, and that her heroic plan involved the surrendering of him to another woman only added to the sublimity of the act.
She went down to her husband’s study; she knew he was out; she hoped she would not have the ill luck to meet Mrs. Poynder.
The house was perfectly still. There stood the row of collected legal wisdom, dusty, dull, abstruse, but full of vital truths for her at this moment. In a few minutes she was deep in law, and covered and daubed with its dust.
She found no hint of a previous engagement of the co-respondent being considered as a circumstance invalidating the divorce, but she saw that she and her husband must on no account sleep under the same roof to-night. That was why he had gone out. He probably did not intend to return. It was a pity he did not know that she was going to take the initiative and leave him, and could not see her boxes at that very moment standing in the hall, strapped and corded and mountainous.
She stood there, taking down one volume after another, feeling the thief of knowledge, since it was from her husband’s own books that she was gleaning the wherewithal to discomfit him when the time came. At any rate they would start fair! About on a level with her hand, she noticed a Blue Book on the Laws of Divorce. She eagerly took it down from the shelf. It seemed clearly written and fairly explanatory.
“There is no divorce by mutual consent of husband and wife.”
She saw that she had been talking nonsense to Mortimer upstairs. How he must have laughed at her absurd proposition!