“It must be that way, or no way at all, missus,” Tom hisses between his teeth, keeping down his anger and a rising oath with a strong effort. “I’ve done all _I_ can; it’s time for _you_ to take your share. Why, look ye here, Rachel; a hundred pound’s a vast of money--a hundred pounds is five hundred dollars. Oh, I’m not going blindly to work, you may depend. If we could begin life with half that, over the water, it would be the making of us. I’d leave off drinking--so help me heaven, I would!--take the pledge, and work like a new one. You’d have a house of your own, Rachel, instead of such a dog-hole as this; and I’d like to see one of them that would take the shine out of my wife on Sundays, when she was tidied up and dressed. Then we’d put the little one to school, when she’s old enough, and we’d keep ourselves respectable, and attend to business, and be a sight happier than we’ve ever been in this miserable country. And all just for the scratch of a pen; Rachel, d’ye think I’d refuse _you_ a trifle like that, if you was to ask me?” “O Tom, I never could do it,” says his wife; “good never would come of such a sin as that.” “Well, Rachel,” rejoins her husband, “there’s some men would make ye. Well, you needn’t draw up so; I’m not going to come it so strong as all that. Let’s talk it over peaceably, any way. And first, where’s the harm? There’s Master Charlie, if ever he comes back from the wars, isn’t he to marry Miss Blanche? And so it’s six to one, and half-a-dozen to the other. And what’s a hundred pounds out of all their thousands? Besides, didn’t the old lady mean to leave you as much as that? and didn’t you deserve it? And if she had lived, wouldn’t she have signed her own name; and where’s the harm of your doing it for her? You can write like your old mistress, Rachel,” adds the tempter, with a ghastly smile; “there’s pen and ink yonder on the mantelpiece. Come!” Rachel wavers; but education and good principles are still too strong within her, and she assumes an air of resolution she does not feel, as she takes up her work, and replies-- “Never, Tom, never!--not if you was to go down upon your bended knees. O Tom, Tom! don’t ask me, and don’t look at me so, Tom. I’ve been a good wife to you; don’t ask me to do such a thing, Tom; don’t.” Her husband pauses for a moment, as though nerving himself for a strong effort, and answers, speaking every word distinctly, and as if in acute physical pain-- “Then it must come out, wife; you must know it all, sooner or later; and why not now? Rachel, _I’m wanted_--they’re looking for me, the bloodhounds--it’s my belief they were after me this very morning. If I don’t cross the seas on my own account, the beaks will send me fast enough on theirs.”