“Compare our positions,” said he. “Here am I--as I have described. Here are you--started from exactly similar premises--the mistress of all, or nearly all, that your heart could desire--a fortune, a title, an unsullied reputation; the respect of a noble husband, the love of a beautiful child--born in wedlock, too, that holy institution, and destined in the future to regard his mother as the pure fount of honour.” She gave a sudden little cry. “Why won’t you say? What do you want of me?” But still he would drive the anguish home. “And to think,” he went on steadily, “that one little word from me could shatter at a blow all this elaborate fabric of respectability! It must necessarily have a value, that word--a high value, if the truth must be spoken.” “I have nothing of my own. You know it.” “I know it, my dear girl, as surely as I know that you are wedded to a man who has always been as lavish a spouse as he promises to be an infatuated father. He would not question, I think, for his own and his heir’s sake, the morality of your keeping his eyes sealed.” “You _will_ not speak it. We are not as rich as you think.” “Well suggested, Georgie--I really beg your pardon. But we are quite remote here. That’s why I ventured to suggest the place for a rendezvous, after your husband, on the afternoon I called here, had shown me over his estate. A very pretty legend, and a very pretty setting for it--the ‘Baby’s Garden’! and very aptly named for our interview.” She fell back a little, holding her hand to her forehead terribly; seeming to speak to herself. “After all, it is only your word against mine.” “Well, not quite,” he said--“not quite. Aren’t you forgetting Mother Carey?” She stared at him, gulping once or twice. “I never lose sight,” he said, “of possible witnesses to my interests. It’s not been to those to lay that dear old ghost of our past, though you would seem to have thought it to yours. A bad policy, child. Do you even know if she is living or dead? You should, if you were wise. But I can see you don’t. An undutiful daughter, to be sure. But she’s living, Georgie--I don’t even mind telling you where. She’s living down in Lambeth--in Old Paradise Street, bless her appropriate quarters--and always ready to testify, at _her_ reasonable price. She’s degenerated into something of a miser, too, I understand, and hoards her ill-gotten gains. How do I know? Why, through some lawyers, my dear, friends of mine, who happen to pay her one of her little quarterly stipends of hush-money. (You, I believe, compromised with her for a lump sum--again a poor policy.) O, you may take my word for it! and do what you like with the information. Lady Skene, I think, will hardly rush to establish her claim to that connection. And, even if she did, I’ve means of controlling Mother Carey. What if I say three hundred pounds?” “You shall have it.” “So I supposed. Then we’ll say five hundred.” “Ruin me, if you will.”