“You see,” he persists, “I saw her only a week ago. It was in Lucerne, while I was waiting for you to come on from England. I talked to her three or four times altogether. And her face—the change in her! I can›t get it out of my head—night or day. The miserable waste of her....”
Before us, through the tall pine stems, shine the lights of our Utopian inn.
He talks vaguely of ill-usage. “The husband is vain, boastful, dishonest to the very confines of the law, and a drunkard. There are scenes and insults―”
“She told you?”
“Not much, but someone else did. He brings other women almost into her presence to spite her.”
“And it›s going on?” I interrupt.
“Yes. Now.”
“Need it go on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lady in trouble,” I say. “Knight at hand. Why not stop this dismal grizzling and carry
