"Easily," she replied. "Draw up a paper for me to sign, and another for you to sign. I will take them away with me, and will show them to my lawyer. Yes, my love, I have consulted a lawyer, and he has advised me to agree to all you propose. If he says the papers are properly drawn out, I will come again to-night, at ten o'clock, and will bring my lawyer with me, to see that they are regularly signed. I will keep my agreement, and you will keep yours, and to-morrow morning I will leave your house, and you can go home and take possession. Nobody but ourselves will be the wiser, and your secret and mine will never be known to the world." "I am no lawyer," I said; "I do not know whether I can draw up the agreement in legal form." "Try, my love," she said; "you are fond of writing, and have had great experience. You can put anything you please in the paper you wish me to sign. You can make it, if you like, a confession from me that I have been a faithless wife, and that my child is not yours. I will sign it. That will suit you, will it not? And it will give you such a hold upon me that, if I break my word, you can release yourself from me, without ever paying me a shilling. That is fair, I am sure, and afterwards, if you are not satisfied with the agreements, your lawyer can draw up others more binding on both of us. I am so sick of you, my love, that nothing else will satisfy me but an immediate break between us. Do I not put myself entirely in your power? If you refuse now, I shall leave you to take any steps against me you choose." I considered a few moments, and then consented. To go to law, to sue for a divorce, was a matter of months. The plan she proposed was all in my favour, and it would leave me free to recommence immediately the search for my son. I would draw up such a paper as would bind her beyond hope of appeal, and all danger of publicity would be avoided. "Who is your lawyer?" I asked. She produced a letter from a lawyer in Buckingham Palace Road replying to certain points she had submitted to him. I was satisfied, and said that I would endeavour to draw up the agreements. It was a work of time--of quite two hours--and while I was employed over the papers she sat down before the piano in my room, which I had never opened, and played the sweetest melodies with which she was familiar. She betrayed no impatience; only once did she rise from the piano, and disarranged the papers on the table, in pretended search of her handkerchief. "Quite an author," she remarked as her eyes fell upon the pages of my diary, among which was my new Will. Nothing of greater importance occurred. The agreements being ready, she read them over slowly, and simply said: "You have protected yourself, my love." "I have stated the truth," I replied, "and your signature will verify it."