Hollister could not see himself as a man guilty of moral obliquity if
he let the graveyard of the past retain its unseemly corpse without
legal exhumation and examination, and the delivering of a formal
verdict upon what was already an accomplished fact.
Nevertheless, he forced himself to consider just what it would mean to
take that step. Briefly it would be necessary for him to go to London,
to secure documentary evidence. Then he must return to Canada, enter
suit against Myra, secure service upon her here in British Columbia.
There would be a trial and a temporary decree; after the lapse of
twelve months a divorce absolute.
He was up against a stone wall. Even if he nerved himself to public
rattling of the skeleton in his private life, he did not have the
means. That was final. He did not have money for such an undertaking,
even if he beggared himself. That was a material factor as inexorable
as death. Actual freedom he had in full measure. Legal freedom could
only be purchased at a price,--and he did not have the price.
Perhaps that decided Hollister.
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