And when she had gone, I untied the string on the envelope and read the summary of how it had all ended.

Their fall had not been sudden or cinematic.

It had been slow, and systematic, and carried out by the patient machinery of the courts and the banks — which is, I have always thought, the most fitting kind of ending for people who believed themselves above both.

Wendy’s conviction had done to her social standing exactly what she had always feared any exposure would do.

The country club revoked her membership within forty-eight hours of her mugshot reaching the local paper.