“You make a specialty of divorce cases,” he said, in, an agitated but business-like tone.

“I may say,” began Lawyer Gooch, “that my practice has not altogether avoided—­”

“I know you do,” interrupted client number three.  “You needn’t tell me.  I’ve heard all about you.  I have a case to lay before you without necessarily disclosing any connection that I might have with it—­that is—­”

“You wish,” said Lawyer Gooch, “to state a hypothetical case.

“You may call it that.  I am a plain man of business.  I will be as brief as possible.  We will first take up hypothetical woman.  We will say she is married uncongenially.  In many ways she is a superior woman.  Physically she is considered to be handsome.  She is devoted to what she calls literature—­poetry and prose, and such stuff.  Her husband is a plain man in the business walks of life.  Their home has not been happy, although the husband has tried to make it so.  Some time ago a man—­a stranger—­came to the peaceful town in which they lived and engaged in some real estate operations.  This woman met him, and became unaccountably infatuated with him.  Her attentions became so open that the man felt the community to be no safe place for him, so he left it.  She abandoned husband and home, and followed him.  She forsook her home, where she was provided with every comfort, to follow this man who had inspired her with such a strange affection.  Is there anything more to be deplored,” concluded the client, in a trembling voice, “than the wrecking of a home by a woman’s uncalculating folly?”

Lawyer Gooch delivered the cautious opinion that there was not.

“This man she has gone to join,” resumed the visitor, “is not the man to make her happy.  It is a wild and foolish self-deception that makes her think he will.  Her husband, in spite of their many disagreements, is the only one capable of dealing with her sensitive and peculiar nature.  But this she does not realize now.”

“Would you consider a divorce the logical cure in the case you present?” asked Lawyer Gooch, who felt that the conversation was wandering too far from the field of business.

“A divorce!” exclaimed the client, feelingly—­almost tearfully.  “No, no—­not that.  I have read, Mr. Gooch, of many instances where your sympathy and kindly interest led you to act as a mediator between estranged husband and wife, and brought them together again.  Let us drop the hypothetical case—­I need conceal no longer that it is I who am the sufferer in this sad affair—­the names you shall have—­Thomas R. Billings and wife—­and Henry K. Jessup, the man with whom she is infatuated.”