The man was indeed no ornament to his profession, but a police-court practitioner of the pushing order, who had secured the case for notoriety and nothing else.

Rachel's soul sickened when she thought of her interviews, and especially her most recent interviews, with one whom she had never seen before her trouble, and whom she devoutly hoped never to see again.

She did not perceive that the time had come when the lawyer might have been really useful to her.

Yet his messages left her more alive to the difficulties that lay before her as a free woman, and to the immediate necessity of acting for herself once more.
After all there had been a silver lining to the cloud under which she had lain so long.

Others had acted for her.