“Thats exactly what I want to arrange with you to do, if you will only be reasonable. Listen. Let us part friends, Susanna, since there is no use in our going on together. You must give me the child. It would only be a burden to you; and I can have it well taken care of. You can keep the house just as it is: I will pay the rent of it.” “What good is the house to me?” “Can’t you hear me out? It will be good to you to live in, I suppose; or you can set it on fire, and wipe it off the face of the earth, for what I care. I can give you five hundred pounds down——” “Five hundred pounds! And what will you live on until your October dividends come in? On credit, I suppose. Do you think you can impose on me by flourishing money before me? I will never take a halfpenny from you; no, not if I starve for it.” “Thats all nonsense, Susanna. You must.” “Must I? Do you think you can make me take your money as you made me sit down here? by force!” “I only offer you what I owe you. Those debts——” “I dont want what you owe me. If you think it mean to leave me, you shant plaster up your conscience with bank notes. You would like to be able to say in your club that you treated me handsomely.” “I dont think it mean to leave you, not a bit of it. Any other man would have left you months ago. If I had married that little fool inside there, and she had taken to drink, I wouldnt have stood it a week. I have stood it from you nearly a year. Can you expect me to stay under the same roof with you, with the very thought of you making me sick and angry? I was looking at some of your old likenesses the other day; and I declare that it is enough to make a man cry to look at your face now and listen to your voice. When you used to lecture me for losing a twenty pound note at billiards, and coming home half screwed—no man shall ever see me drunk again—I little thought which of us would be the first to go to the dogs.” “I shall not trouble you long.” “What is the use of harping on that? I have seen you drunk so often that I should almost be glad to see you dead.” “Stop!” said Susanna, rising. “All right: you need say no more. Talking will not remedy matters; and it makes me feel pretty much as if you were throwing big stones at my heart. Youre in the right, I suppose: I’ve chosen to make a beast of myself, and I must take the consequences. You can have the child. I will send for my things: you wont see me at Laurel Grove again. Good-bye.” “But——” “Dont say another word, Bob. Good-bye.” He took her hand irresolutely. She drew it quickly away; nodded to him; and went out, whilst he stood wondering whether it would be safe—seeing that he did not desire a reconciliation—to kiss her good-bye. CHAPTER XIV