"I sha'n't rest if you do," said Septimus, nervously. "Please don't talk of it. It hurts me. I've done little enough in the world, God knows. Give me this chance of--the Buddhists call it 'acquiring merit.'" This was not a new argument between them. Emmy had a small income under her father's will, and the prospect of earning a modest salary on the stage. She reckoned that she would have sufficient to provide for herself and the child. Hitherto Septimus had been her banker. Neither of them had any notion of the value of money, and Septimus had a child's faith in the magic of the drawn check. He would as soon have thought of measuring the portion of whisky he poured out for a guest as of counting the money he advanced to Emmy. She took up his last words, and speaking in a low tone, as a woman does when her pride has gone from her, she said: "Haven't you acquired enough merit already, my dear? Don't you see the impossibility of my going on accepting things from you? You seem to take it for granted that you're to provide for me and the child for the rest of our lives. I've been a bad, unprincipled fool of a girl, I know--yes, rotten bad; there are thousands like me in London--" Septimus rose to his feet. "Oh, don't, Emmy, don't! I can't stand it." She rose too and put her hands on his shoulders. "You must let me speak to-night--our last night before we part. It isn't generous of you not to listen." The yellow dog, disturbed in his slumbers, shook himself, and regarding them with an air of humble sympathy turned and walked away discreetly into the shadow. The fisher folk on the jetty still sang their mournful chorus. "Sit down again." Septimus yielded. "But why give yourself pain?" he asked gently. "To ease my heart. The knife does good. Yes, I know I've been worthless. But I'm not as bad as that. Don't you see how horrible the idea is to me? I must pay you back the money--and of course not come on you for any more. You've done too much for me already. It sometimes stuns me to think of it. It was only because I was in hell and mad--and grasped at the hand you held out to me. I suppose I've done you the biggest wrong a woman can do a man. Now I've come to my senses, I shudder at what I've done." "Why? Why?" said Septimus, growing miserably unhappy. "How can you ever marry, unless we go through the vulgarity of a collusive divorce?" "My dear girl," said he, "what woman would ever marry a preposterous lunatic like me?" "There's not a woman living who ought not to have gone down on her bended knees if she had married you." "I should never have married," said he, laying his hand for a moment reassuringly on hers. "Who knows?" She gave a slight laugh. "Zora is only a woman like the rest of us." "Why talk of Zora?" he said quickly. "What has she to do with it?" "Everything. You don't suppose I don't know," she replied in a low voice. "It was for her sake and not for mine."