'But--is it possible? £30,000? Jenny, you can never pay that enormous sum.' 'My dear Will, I never thought I should be able to pay it. Unfortunately while it is unpaid the good people are not likely to give me any more money. No, Will, that chapter is finished. Exit Madame Vallance. Who comes next?' 'But there are the creditors to consider.' I began to have fears of a Debtors' Prison for Jenny. 'Oh! The creditors? The creditors, my dear Will, will be handed over to Matthew. You are a good musician but an indifferent lawyer. Matthew--Matthew--is responsible for his wife's liabilities. This is the only point which reconciles me to marriage with such a man. I am provided with a person who must take over all my debts. Dear Matthew! Kind Matthew! That worthy man, that incomparable husband will now, for the first time, understand the full felicities of the married state.' 'But Matthew can never pay this enormous sum of money.' 'I do not suppose he can. Then he will retreat to the Prison where he put you, and, as long as he lives, will have opportunity of blessing first the day when he married a wife, and next the day when he made it impossible for her to live with him. If I can no longer carry on my Assembly Rooms, what remains?' 'There is always the stage. Your friends desire nothing so much as your return to Drury Lane.' 'Yes, the stage. I might return to Drury Lane. But, Will, those good people who sacked the Black Jack and wrecked the house in the Square yesterday, they were my friends of old; some of them, I believe, are my cousins: they formerly came to applaud. Do you think they would come to applaud after what has happened? Not so. They would come with baskets full of rotten apples and addled eggs: they would salute me with those missiles; there would be frantic cursings and hissings; they would drive me off the stage with every brutal insult that their filthy minds could invent. Oh! I know my own people--my cousins. I know them.' 'They will forget you, Jenny.' 'Yes, if I keep quiet. If I put myself forward the old rancour will be revived. Who betrayed her old friends? Who sent the Bishop and the Captain to Newgate? Who got them put in pillory--where they will most certainly have to stand? Who caused all the addled eggs in London to fly in their innocent faces? I tell you, Will, I know my people. Are they not my people? And have I not betrayed them? You lovely boy--tell your Dada that Jenny will never repent or regret what she did for his sake: she would do it again, she would--she would--she would.' 'Oh! Jenny, you cut me to the heart. What can I do for you?' 'You can look happy again: and you can get the Newgate paleness out of your cheeks--that is what you can do, Will.'