"What do you mean?" She moved slightly back from him, behind the protection of one of the tables piled breast-high with its white load.
"You're willing to lose for me the last vestige of your good name—"
"I don't care anything about that," she said, hurriedly.
"But I do. I won't let you."
"How can you stop me?" she asked, staring at him with large, frightened eyes.
"I shall tell Dorothea's part in the story."
"You'd—?" she began, with a questioning cry.
"All who care to hear it, shall. They shall know it from its beginning to its end. They shall lose no detail of her folly or of your wisdom."
"You would sacrifice your child like that?"
"Yes, like that. Neither she nor I can remain so indebted to any one, as you would have us be to you."