with you, my good husband who
would leave me to starve--who would divorce me, and marry this woman,
and cut the hated Cora out of your life. But no, my poor child, it shall
not be. So long as we live, we two, Cora will never desert you. It is my
only consolation, that I shall be able to follow every step of your
existence as I followed you to-night, without your knowing where I am,
or at what moment I may stand before you."

"Let us walk," said Alan, "and talk things over. Why stand here?"

"You are afraid that I shall make another scandal, and rouse the
virtuous Lettice from her pillow, with the sound of her name screamed
out in the night? Ha, ha! How the poor coward trembles! Have no fear!
Twice in a week your brutal police have seized me, and I do not love
their kind attentions. Now and then I may defy them, when I need an
excitement of that kind; but not to-night. To-night I mean to be clever,
and show you how I can twist a cold-blooded Englishman round my finger.
If you go, then I will scream--it is a woman's bludgeon, my child, as
her tongue is her dagger. Bah! be quiet and listen to me. You shall not
divorce me, for if you try I will accuse you of all sorts of
things--basenesses that will blast your name for ever."

"I am not afraid of you," said Alan. "For anything I know, you have a
pistol under your cloak--shoot me. I took you to love and cherish, and
you have made my life a hell. What good is it? Shoot!"

"No; that makes a noise. In Paris I would shoot you, for it is you who
have destroyed my life. But in London you do not understand these
things, so that I must act differently. Listen! If you try to divorce
me, and do not pay me my money, I have one or two little pistol-shots a
l'anglaise which will suit you perfectly. Shall I tell you what I would
say, to anyone who would listen to me--in court, in the street,
anywhere?"

"As you please."

"First, that you fired at me at Culoz, and that I can bring forward
witnesses of the attempted assassination."

"That is pure nonsense; I am not to be frightened by such child's play."

"Second, so far as the divorce is concerned, that whatever my offence
may have been, you have condoned it. Do you not understand, my friend?
Did I not find shelter in your rooms in Montagu Place? I would have a
good lawyer, who would know how to make the most of that."

"Have you nothing stronger to rely on?"

"Listen; you shall tell me. My third pistol-shot is this--that you w