cheerful view of this business."
"I'll try, sir."
Crichton was still at breakfast when a short, red-haired young man fairly burst into the room.
"Guy Campbell!" exclaimed Cyril joyfully.
"Hullo, old chap, glad to see you," cried the newcomer, pounding Cyril affectionately on the back. "How goes it? I say, your telephone message gave me quite a turn. What's up? Have you got into a scrape? You look as calm as possible."
"If I look calm, my looks belie me. I assure you I never felt less calm in my life."
"What on earth is the matter?"
"You won't have some breakfast?"
"Breakfast at half-past eleven! No thank you."
"Well, then, take a cigarette, pull up that chair to the fire, and listen--and don't play the fool; this is serious."
"Fire away."
"I want your legal advice, Guy, though I suppose you'll tell me I need a solicitor, not a barrister. I wish to get a divorce."
"A divorce? Why, Cyril, I am awfully sorry. I had heard that your marriage hadn't turned out any too well, but I had no idea it was as bad as that. You have proof, I suppose."
"Ample."
Tell me the particulars. I never have heard anything against your wife's character."
"You mean that you have never heard that she was unfaithful to me. Bah, it makes me sick the way people talk, as if infidelity were the only vice that damned a woman's character. Guy, her character was rotten through and through. Her infidelity was simply a minor, though culminating, expression of it."
"But how did you come to marry such a person?"
"You know she was the Chalmerses' governess?"
"Yes."
"I had been spending a few weeks with them. Jack, the oldest son, was a friend of mine and she was the daughter of a brother officer of old Chalmers's who had died in India, and consequently her position in the household was different from that of an ordinary governess. I soon got quite friendly with Amy and her two charges, and we used to rag about together a good deal. I liked her, but upon my honour I hadn't a thought of making love to her. Then one day there was an awful row. They accused her of carrying on a clandestine love affair with Freddy, the second son, and with drinking on the sly. They had found empty bottles hidden in her bedroom. She posed as injured innocence--the victim of a vile plot to get her out of the house--had no money, no friends, no hope of another situation. I was young; she was pretty. I was dreadfully sorry for her and so--well, I married her. As the regiment had just been ordered to South Africa, we went there immediately. We had not been married a year, however, when I discovered that she was a confirmed drunkard. I think only the fear of losing her position had kept her within certain bounds. That necessity removed, she seemed unable to put any restraint on herself. I doubt if she even tried 

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