"How generous you are! What a pity you were not a young man when you met me first! We might really have got on very well together for a few years, until you were tired of me or I was of you. Three thousand pounds will be little enough to furnish with, but I must manage. Then there's the house; and living abroad is so expensive. It is like going into exile--the same as those dear French refugees. It will cost at least three thousand a year; I can't see how it is to be done for less. And to wait every quarter for the cheque to pay servants, and butchers, and bakers, and dressmakers. No, my dear, it would be too harassing--it would be the death of me. So I have consulted a friend--a lady friend--you don't believe me? You think it's a gentleman friend. Well, my dear, I shall not quarrel with you on that point. Say a gentleman friend, then; I'm not particular. He has advised me not to place any dependence on a man who has treated me as you have done. He is right. I will not place dependence on you. I will not take your word, and I will not be satisfied with a paper drawn up by a lawyer of your choosing. Lawyers are rogues; they will do anything for money, and you are rich enough to buy them. No, my darling husband, it must be a sum of money down, and then we will say good bye, and agree never to kiss and be friends. It would be as if we had never known each other." Desirous to ascertain how far her cupidity had led her, or rather the extent of the demand her associate Pelham had instructed her to make, I pressed her to be quite explicit. With some show of timidity--for the stake she was playing for was enormous--she wrote upon a leaf in her pocket-book the sum for which she would agree to release me. It was fifty thousand pounds. I tore the leaf in two and threw it into the fireplace, with the simple word, "Impossible." "Why impossible?" she asked, biting her lips, with a wicked look at me. "It is more than half my fortune," I replied. "I am entitled to more than half," she retorted. "I shall have your child to educate and provide for, and a woman's expenses are larger than a man's. Dress, amusements, nurses, governesses--there are a thousand things to pay for which you would never dream of. What I ask for is really moderate. You are lucky you have not to deal with some women; they would not let you off so easily. Let me persuade you, my dear. Put an end to all this worry, give me a cheque, and let us say good-bye to each other."