She interrupted me with, "Never, never, shall I be able to repay you. It is almost as if you were a lawyer looking after my interests, and as if I were one of your favourite clients. You cannot hate me, after all, or you would never advise me as you are doing. What line of action--how beautifully you express yourself; such language only comes to the good and clever--what line of action do you advise me to adopt?" "First, I must ask you, as between ourselves, to enlighten me as to Mr. Pelham. I know that you are still keeping up an intimacy with your infamous lover, but I must have it from your own lips." "So that you may not have cause to reproach yourself afterwards, if you should happen to find out that I am not so bad as you believe me to be! Yes, I will confess; I will not attempt to deceive you. He still holds his power over me, but you are not entirely right in the way you put it. You _are_ in calling him infamous, but you are wrong when you call him my lover. I am not so bad as that; but I cannot escape from him. Why," she said, and her voice sank to a whisper, "do you know that I have to supply him with money, that he lives upon me, and that he has so entangled and deceived me that I should laugh if I were to see him lying dead at my feet!" "What I require of you is this," I said, not attempting to follow her into the currents to which her strange utterances would lead me. "You will write down a full confession of all matters relating to yourself which affect the honour of my father. The confession must be full and complete, and you will place it in my hands, and leave the house, and within a week afterwards you will leave the country. You will pledge yourself never to set foot again in England, and never to attempt to see or speak with my father. In return I will secure to you an income which shall be paid to you regularly, so long as you do not break the conditions of the contract." "How hard!" she said, plaintively. "I am so fond of England! There is no other country in the world worth living in. And I have grown so attached to this house! I am so happy here, so very, very happy! I must think a little--you will not mind, will you? And you will forgive me if I say anything wrong! Even if there was what you call an open exposure, and your father were to believe every word you speak against me, I am still his wife, and he would be compelled to make me an allowance. Then I could live where I please. These things come to my mind, I suppose, because I have not a soul in the world to help me--not a soul, not a friend! Do you not see that I am speaking reasonably?"