“Maurice, don’t treat me like this. You deceive yourself. My dot belongs to me. It was mine from the beginning. A friend of my father’s insisted upon it. Do you want proof of it? As long as my mother lived I used the income from it for her. I could dispose of it as I saw fit. You see, you are mistaken. Don’t treat me like this.” In his mental disarray the former law student of the Frasne offices was summoning up all his ideas of law, trying to reason the thing out. “It’s always been a gift. A gift from him. And a settlement is revocable in case of divorce.” “Not mine, I swear to you,” she assured him, hazarding everything on the throw. “Try to think, Edith. It is so serious. My very life is at stake.” “Your life?” “Yes. Or my honour. It’s the same thing. Was it you who took charge of this sum, who handled the revenues?” “Yes, I.” She was on the alert now, and guessed swiftly what way she must make her answers, plunging into falsehood greedily. The settlement of one hundred thousand francs to which Mr. Frasne had consented upon her marriage was her own property in fact, but under the administration and control of her husband. It was not to continue in the event of an action for divorce against her. In any case, she had not the free use of it, she could not arrange, by herself alone, for withdrawing any of it. But what did these quibbles amount to? Nevertheless, Maurice went on, implacable as a trial judge. “Where was this money deposited?” “In the Universal Bank, in funds that I negotiated myself with it. I’ve told you all this already. Let me be, Maurice.” “Deposited in your name?” “In my name.” “Was it there you drew it out before we left Chambéry?” “Yes, there.” “You were able to withdraw it from the branch at Chambéry on your endorsement alone?” “Yes.” “Then you were married under the arrangement of a separate maintenance account?” “That was it.” Several times he had questioned her on this subject, since she had told him, a little while after their flight, of having realised upon her personal fortune, which she represented as having been an inheritance from her family. This fiction of a deposit account, conceived at that time to avoid rousing the young man’s susceptibilities, she was maintaining now energetically the very day on which she had thought to give it up completely.