"I do not wish to seem harsh, but it is better to tell you at once that if you refuse any money request of mine at any time I shall immediately commence proceedings against you. I shall bring an action for breach of promise of marriage, and all England will cry shame on the false, mercenary woman who abandoned a poor lover, to whom her troth was plighted, in order to marry a rich lord. All England shall despise you. For your child's sake, I counsel you to avoid an exposure." She read those terrible words over and over again. Suddenly the whole plot grew clear to her. It was for this they had schemed and plotted. Not for love of her, but to make money out of her, to trade upon her weakness and folly, stain her character, her fair name, her happiness, the love of her husband and child, the esteem of her friends. All lay in their hands. They could, if they would, make her name, that noble name which her husband bore so proudly, a subject of jest all over the world. She could fancy the papers, their paragraphs, their remarks, their comments. She could almost see the heading: "Action for Breach of Promise against Lady Atherton." How the Radicals, who hated her husband for his politics, would rejoice! Even in the years to come, when her child grew to man's estate, it would be as a black mark against him that his mother had been the subject of such vulgar jest. Her husband would never bear it. He would leave her, she was sure. Ah! better pay a thousand pounds over and over again than go through all this. Yet it seemed a large sum; not that she cared for it, but how could she get it without her husband's knowledge? By her own wish, all money affairs had been left in his hands; he would wonder when he looked at her check book why she had drawn so large a sum; better write out checks of a hundred pounds each. She did so, and sent them. Just as she was folding the paper that enclosed them a grand inspiration came to her--an impulse to go to her husband and tell him all. He would find some means of saving her, she was quite sure of that. Then the more cowardly, the weaker part of her nature, rose in rebellion. She dared not, for, if she did, he would never love her again. So she sent the thousand pounds, and then there was an interval of peace. Yet not peace for her; the sword was suspended over her head, and any moment it might fall. She grew thin, restless and nervous; her husband and all her friends wondered what ailed her; her manner changed, even her beautiful face seemed to grow restless and pale.