Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/175

 and tore it into little pieces, after which conversation flagged. After awhile Beale asked:

"What do I have to do to get a divorce?"

"Well," said the lawyer, "by the English law if you leave your wife and go away, and refuse to return to her she can apply to a judge of the High Court, who will order you to return within fourteen days."

"I'd come back in fourteen seconds if she wanted me," said Beale fervently.

"You're hopeless," said Kitson, "you asked how you could get a divorce. I presume you want one."

"Of course I do. I want to undo the whole of this horrible tangle. It's absurd and undignified. Can nothing be done without Miss Cresswell knowing?"

"Nothing can be done without your wife's knowledge," said Kitson.

He seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in reminding the unhappy young man of his misfortune.

"I am not blaming you," he said more soberly, "I blame myself. When I took this trust from poor John Millinborn I never realized all that it meant or all the responsibility it entailed. How could I imagine that the detective I employed to protect the girl from fortune hunters would marry her? I am not complaining," he said hastily, seeing the wrath rise in Beale's face, "it is very unfortunate, and you are as much the victim of circumstances as I. But unhappily we have not been the real victims."

"I suppose," said Beale, looking up at the ceiling, "if I were one of those grand little mediæval knights or one of those gallant gentlemen one reads about I should blow my brains out."

"That would be a solution," said Mr. Kitson, "but we should still have to explain to your wife that she was a widow."

"Then what am I to do?"

"Have a cigar," said Kitson.

He took two from his vest pocket and handed one to his companion, and his shrewd old eyes twinkled.

"It's years and years since I read a romantic story,"