“How much do you want?”
He seemed to ignore her question for the moment intentionally. It was his policy to specify at its fullest value his claim on her. That must amount inevitably, as I foresaw, to his possession of the very secret which I had made, as I thought, my own. He knew somehow that she had been no widow when she had married Lord Skene; and, indeed, his next words proved the justice of my surmise.
“Compare our positions,” said he. “Here am I—as I have described. Here are you—started from exactly similar premises—the mistress of all, or nearly all, that your heart could desire—a fortune, a title, an unsullied reputation; the respect of a noble husband, the love of a beautiful child—born in wedlock, too, that holy institution, and destined in the future to regard his mother as the pure fount of honour.”
She gave a sudden little cry.
“Why won’t you say? What do you want of me?”
But still he would drive the anguish home.
“And to think,” he went on steadily, “that one little word from me could shatter at a blow all this elaborate fabric of respectability! It must necessarily have a value, that word—a high value, if the truth must be spoken.”
“I have nothing of my own. You know it.”
“I know it, my dear girl, as surely as I know that you are wedded to a man who has always been as lavish a spouse as he promises to be an infatuated father. He would not question, I think, for his own and his heir’s sake, the morality of your keeping his eyes sealed.”
“You will not speak it. We are not as rich as you think.”