I daresay he would have faced it out; I daresay he
would have thrown over Florence and taken the risk of exposure.
But there he had Leonora to deal with. And Leonora assured him
that, if the minutest fragment of the real situation ever got through
to my senses, she would wreak upon him the most terrible
vengeance that she could think of. And he did not have a very
easy job. Florence called for more and more attentions from him
as the time went on. She would make him kiss her at any moment
of the day; and it was only by his making it plain that a divorced
lady could never assume a position in the county of Hampshire
that he could prevent her from making a bolt of it with him in her
train. Oh, yes, it was a difficult job for him.
For Florence, if you please, gaining in time a more composed view
of nature, and overcome by her habits of garrulity, arrived at a
frame of mind in which she found it almost necessary to tell me
all about it--nothing less than that. She said that her situation was
too unbearable with regard to me.
She proposed to tell me all, secure a divorce from me, and go with
Edward and settle in California. . . . I do not suppose that she was
really serious in this.
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