"If you weren't a dead log it might be that you'd find out how true that was. Any man with a touch of spice in him would give the eyes out of his head for a wife like me, and there have been plenty who were ready to do it." "As you yourself observed, these things are a question of taste. So you think she was justified in treating me as she did?" "Justified for not wanting to marry a thing like you! You ought to have been drowned for hinting at it." "I am myself beginning to think that your point of view may not be wholly incorrect, and that, therefore, it was fortunate that I did not die on the night we were married." "I don't." "You wouldn't--you have, of course, your own point of view. From mine it is fortunate that I have been spared to enable me to make another will." "How are you going to make a will, when you can't move so much as a finger?" "I can have one drawn up according to my instructions. You will find that I'm capable of signing it. Would you have any objection?" "It would depend on what there was in it." "I see. May I ask if you are under the impression that if I die without a will--even supposing our marriage is valid----" "It's valid enough, don't you be afraid." "I'm not afraid; you, I fancy, have the cause to fear. But I say, supposing our marriage is a marriage--as to which I say nothing either one way or the other--if I die intestate do you imagine that you will necessarily come into possession of all I have?" "Have you any relatives?" "Not one in the whole wide world." "Then you bet I shall." "You may bet you won't." "Who's got more right to what you leave behind than your lawful wife?" "It depends. Under no circumstances would you inherit more than half of my personal property, and a third of my real estate; the rest would go to the Crown." "Half's something! Look here, Dr. Twelves told me that if I married you I should have twenty thousand pounds. Have you got as much?" There was an interval before an answer came. Possibly the man in the bed was considering what answer he should make to such a very leading question. "I cannot tell you exactly what I have got, but I may safely venture to assert this much: If all I possess--land, houses, shares and so on--were to be turned into cash to-morrow, I should find myself with at least two hundred thousand pounds." "Two hundred thousand pounds! Go on!"