you come to make
tea for us? and what the deuce are you here for, in the dark? What ails
you, young woman: you look like a ghost!' he continued, surveying me by
the light of his candle.

'No matter,' I answered, 'to you; you have no longer any regard for me it
appears; and I have no longer any for you.'

'Hal-lo! what the devil is this?' he muttered. 'I would leave you
to-morrow,' continued I, 'and never again come under this roof, but for
my child'--I paused a moment to steady, my voice.

'What in the devil's name is this, Helen?' cried he. 'What can you be
driving at?'

'You know perfectly well. Let us waste no time in useless explanation,
but tell me, will you--?'

He vehemently swore he knew nothing about it, and insisted upon hearing
what poisonous old woman had been blackening his name, and what infamous
lies I had been fool enough to believe.

'Spare yourself the trouble of forswearing yourself and racking your
brains to stifle truth with falsehood,' I coldly replied. 'I have
trusted to the testimony of no third person. I was in the shrubbery this
evening, and I saw and heard for myself.'

This was enough. He uttered a suppressed exclamation of consternation
and dismay, and muttering, 'I shall catch it now!' set down his candle on
the nearest chair, and rearing his back against the wall, stood
confronting me with folded arms.

'Well, what then?' said he, with the calm insolence of mingled
shamelessness and desperation.

'Only this,' returned I; 'will you let me take our child and what remains
of my fortune, and go?'

'Go where?'

'Anywhere, where he will be safe from your contaminating influence, and I
shall be delivered from your presence, and you from mine.'

'No.'

'Will you let me have the child then, without the money?'

'No, nor yourself without the child. Do you think I'm going to be made
the talk of the country for your fastidious caprices?'

'Then I must stay here, to be hated and despised. But henceforth we are
husband and wife only in the name.'

'Very good.'

'I am your child's mother, and your housekeeper, nothing more. So you
need not trouble yourself any longer to feign the love you cannot feel: I
will exact no more heartless caresses from you, nor offer nor endure them
either. I will not be mocked with the empty husk of conjugal
endearments, when you have given the substance to another!'

'Very good, if you please. We shall see who will tire first, my lady.'