"Well."
"It is best both for her and for me that we should be apart."
"I cannot understand how you can be so mad as to say so."
"You don't understand what I feel. Heaven and earth! To have a man coming and going—. But, never mind. You do not see it, and nothing will make you see it. And there is no reason why you should."
"I certainly do not see it. I do not believe that your wife cares more for Colonel Osborne, except as an old friend of her father's, than she does for the fellow that sweeps the crossing. It is a matter in which I am bound to tell you what I think."
"Very well. Now, if you have freed your mind, I will tell you my purpose. I am bound to do so, because your people are concerned in it. I shall go abroad."
"And leave her in England?"
"Certainly. She will be safer here than she can be abroad,—unless she should choose to go back with her father to the islands."
"And take the boy?"
"No;—I could not permit that. What I intend is this. I will give her £800 a year, as long as I have reason to believe that she has no communication whatever, either by word of mouth or by letter, with that man. If she does, I will put the case immediately into the hands of my lawyer, with instructions to him to ascertain from counsel what severest steps I can take."