HONOUR IMPUGNED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 41, 18 February 1933, Page 11

HONOUR IMPUGNED.

NOVELIST'S DIVORCE. COUNTER-SUIT FAILS. HUSBAND'S ALLEGATIONS. Mrs. Mary Barbara Hamilton McCorquodale (Barbara Cartland, the novelist) was in the Divorce Court granted a decree nisi with costs and Mr. Hugh McCorquodale was dismissed from the suit with costs. Mrs. McCorquodale petitioned for divorce- from her husband, Mr. Alexander George McCorquodale, of Chesterfield Court, London, on the ground of his alleged adultery with. Mrs. Helene Ellinor Clare Curtis. Mr. McCorquodale and Mrs. Curtis denied the allegations except in one respect. In a cross-petition Mr. McCorquodale alleged that his wife and his cousin Hugh had committed adultery. Both denied these charges. The jury found adultery on the part of Mr. McCorquodale and Mrs. Curtis, but that Mrs. McCorquodale and Mr. Hugh McCorquodale had not committed adultery. In hie summing-up, Lord Merrivale eaid the case presented eome remarkable features. The husband, Mr. McCorquodale, was evidently a man of great means, and one of the heads of a very well-known business. A Woman's Letters. Mre. McCorquodale, it appeared, found a number of letters which Mrs. Curtie had written to Mr. A. G. McCorquodale. '•"You have heard thoee lettere," said Lord Merrivale. "You will remember how she described the rapturous time they had spent together, and how she had been in his arms." The jury'e ultimate decision must depend largely upon the view they took as to whether the husband and his butler and ex-footman were telling the truth. It was alleged against Mrs. McCorquodale that she had been living the life of an abandoned and lustful woman with hie cousin, Hugh, because a woman with a sense of decency did not submit to actions such as the butler and ex-foot-man had described. "You have seen Mre. McCorquodale," proceeded Lord Merrivale, "and you can judge whether ehe' was the sort of woman who would, throw herself into another man's arms in a profligate way." Hugh McCorquodale gave the petitioner, his cousin's wife, a diamond bracelet of considerable value and other preeente. His answer was: "Yes, I did give her presents. I gave her the bracelet after I had had a stroke of luck with some shares in 1929, and out of the profit I gave her the present." Continuing, Lord Merrivale said certain details of close friendship between Hugh McCorquodale and Mrs. McCorquodale had been admitted, 6uch as the use of the wife's bedroom, but was there any evidence of anything else? It was to be remembered that Mrs. McCorquodale was a literary woman with a high degree of mental capacity, using her room as a study and a place in winch to receive her gueets.