Wilkinson looked at Morehead for sympathy; then he answered with illy assumed contrition:
"Yes, my dear."
"I can't face anybody—not my dearest friends," went on the lady. "I shall never be able to go anywhere again—never."
Wilkinson grinned feebly at his lawyer.
"They say I won't, either, for the next ten years," he said, in soothing tones.
His jibe aroused the sleeping tigress in her. The lady rose and pointed toward the door. Her gown was a masterpiece of dressmaking art, for singular as it may seem her income had not been stopped. Upon her breast lay jewels worth many thousands; about her neck was clasped a dog-collar weighted with heavy pearls; and her fingers sparkled with gems.
"You can go!" exclaimed the lady, stamping her foot—this lady who would have been nobody without the wealth that this man had lavished on her. "All these years you've considered everybody but your wife," she went on. "I've had to bear the brunt of it all. I—I.... The idea of you letting them send you up for ten years, of heaping all this infamy on me! I shall sue for divorce, do you hear, divorce!"
"Yes, my dear," said Wilkinson, again meekly glancing at his counsel.
"Go!" she exclaimed; then added with commendable melodramatic force: "You and your paid hireling there, leave me!"
Colonel Morehead grew purple in the face. He advanced toward his client's wife.