I thank you, Mellefont, if you say this out of kindness to me; and I do not take it amiss, if you have another meaning in it. MELLEFONT. I am pleased to see you so calm. MARWOOD. The storm is over. Forget it, I beg you once more. MELLEFONT. Only remember your promise, Marwood, and I will forget everything with pleasure. But if I knew that you would not consider it an offence, I should like to ask---- MARWOOD. Ask on, Mellefont! You cannot offend me any more. What were you going to ask? MELLEFONT. How you liked my Sara? MARWOOD. The question is natural. My answer will not seem so natural, but it is none the less true for that. I liked her very much. MELLEFONT. Such impartiality delights me. But would it be possible for him who knew how to appreciate the charms of a Marwood to make a bad choice? MARWOOD. You ought to have spared me this flattery, Mellefont, if it is flattery. It is not in accordance with our intention to forget each other. MELLEFONT. You surely do not wish me to facilitate this intention by rudeness? Do not let our separation be of an ordinary nature. Let us break with each other as people of reason who yield to necessity; without bitterness, without anger, and with the preservation of a certain degree of respect, as behoves our former intimacy. MARWOOD. Former intimacy! I do not wish to be reminded of it. No more of it. What must be, must, and it matters little how. But one word more about Arabella. You will not let me have her? MELLEFONT. No, Marwood! MARWOOD. It is cruel, since you can no longer be her father, to take her mother also from her. MELLEFONT. I can still be her father, and will be so. MARWOOD. Prove it, then, now! MELLEFONT. How? MARWOOD. Permit Arabella to have the riches which I have in keeping for you, as her father's inheritance. As to her mother's inheritance I wish I could leave her a better one than the shame of having been borne by me. MELLEFONT. Do not speak so! I shall provide for Arabella without embarrassing her mother's property. If she wishes to forget me, she must begin by forgetting that she possesses anything from me. I have obligations towards her, and I shall never forget that really--though against her will--she has promoted my happiness. Yes, Marwood, in all seriousness I thank you for betraying our retreat to a father whose ignorance of it alone prevented him from receiving us again. MARWOOD.