'Well,' he went on, 'now, he hasn't run away from you. He's stayed with you for three years; utterly incapable of appreciating you, as I know he is, bothering you to death.'
'Oh, Aylmer!'
'Don't I know him? You're wasting and frittering yourself away for nothing.'
'The children—'
'Don't you think I'd have looked after the children better than he?'
'Yes, I do, Aylmer. But he is their father. They may keep him straight.'
'I consider you're utterly wasted,' he said. 'Well! He's stuck to you, apparently, for these last three years (as far as you know), and now I'm going to ask you something entirely different, for the last time. When I was dying, or thought I was, things showed themselves clearly enough, I can tell you. And I made up my mind if I lived to see you, to say this. Leave Bruce, with me!'
She stared at him.
'In six weeks, when he's tired of telling his friends at the club about it, he'll make up his mind, I suppose, if you insist, or even without, to divorce you. But do you suppose he'll keep the children? No, my dear of course he won't. You'll never have to leave them. I would never ask you that. Now listen!' He put his hand over hers, not caressingly, but to keep her quiet. 'He'll want to marry again, won't he?'
'Very likely,' she answered.