“He will get over that.  It is enough for me,” she exclaimed, ardently, after a dreamy pause, “that I am separated from him forever—­that I am free—­free—­free.”

A night’s sleep served to intensify Selma’s determination, and she awoke clearly of the opinion that a divorce was desirable.  Why remain fettered by a bare legal tie to one who was a husband only in name?  Accordingly, in company with Mrs. Earle, she visited the office of James O. Lyons, and took the initiatory steps to dissolve the marriage.

Mr. Lyons was a large, full-bodied man of thirty-five, with a fat, cleanly-shaven, cherubic countenance, an aspect of candor, and keen, solemn eyes.  His manner was impressive and slightly pontificial; his voice resonant and engaging.  He knew when to joke and when to be grave as an owl.  He wore in every-day life a shiny, black frock-coat, a standing collar, which yawned at the throat, and a narrow, black tie.  His general effect was that of a cross between a parson and a shrewd Yankee—­a happy suggestion of righteous, plain, serious-mindedness, protected against the wiles of human society—­and able to protect others—­by a canny intelligence.  For a young man he had already a considerable clientage.  A certain class of people, notably the hard-headed, God-fearing, felt themselves safe in his hands.  His magnetic yet grave manner of conducting business pleased Benham, attracting also both the distressed and the bilious portions of the community, and the farmers from the surrounding country.  As Mrs. Earle informed Selma, he was in sympathy with all progressive and stimulating ideas, and he already figured in the newspapers politically, and before the courts as a friend of the masses, and a fluent advocate of social reforms.  His method of handling Selma’s case was smooth.  To begin with, he was sympathetic within proper limits, giving her tacitly to understand that, though as a man and brother, he deplored the necessity of extreme measures, he recognized that she had made up her mind, and that compromise was out of the question.  To put it concisely, his manner was grieved, but practical.  He told her that he would represent to Babcock the futility of contesting a cause, which, on the evidence, must be hopeless, and that, in all probability, the matter could be disposed of easily and without publicity.  He seemed to Selma a very sensible and capable man, and it was agreeable to her to feel that he appreciated that, though divorce in the abstract was deplorable, her experience justified and called for the protection of the law.

In the meantime Babcock was very unhappy, and was casting about for a method to induce his wife to return.  He wrote to her a pitiful letter, setting forth once more the sorry facts in the best light which he could bring to bear on them, and implored her forgiveness.  He applied to her aunt, Mrs. Farley, and got her to supplement his plea with her good-natured intervention.  “There are lots of men like that,” she