"Oh! sir," said she, getting up and taking hold of both his hands, "you won't be so cruel, will you? I have got some money somewhere—some money my father settled on me, sir; I don't know how much, but I think it's more than two thousand pounds, and you shall have it all. If I can't give it you now, I'll make a will, sir. Only be merciful to poor Dick—don't go and prosecute him, sir."
"My dear Mrs Bradshaw, don't agitate yourself in this way. I never meant to prosecute him."
"But Mr Bradshaw says that you must."
"I shall not, indeed. I have told Mr Bradshaw so."
"Has he been here? Oh! is not he cruel? I don't care. I've been a good wife till now. I know I have. I have done all he bid me, ever since we were married. But now I will speak my mind, and say to everybody how cruel he is—how hard to his own flesh and blood! If he puts poor Dick in prison, I will go too. If I'm to choose between my husband and my son, I choose my son; for he will have no friends, unless I am with him."
"Mr Bradshaw will think better of it. You will see that, when his first anger and disappointment are over, he will not be hard or cruel."
"You don't know Mr Bradshaw," said she, mournfully, "if you think he'll change. I might beg and beg—I have done many a time, when we had little children, and I wanted to save them a whipping—but no begging ever did any good. At last I left it off. He'll not change."
"Perhaps not for human entreaty. Mrs Bradshaw, is there nothing more powerful?"
The tone of his voice suggested what he did not say.
"If you mean that God may soften his heart," replied she, humbly, "I'm not going to deny God's power—I have need to think of Him," she continued, bursting into fresh tears, "for I am a very miserable woman. Only think! he cast it up against me last night, and said, if I had not spoilt Dick this never would have happened."