"I should like to know what you expect to gain by trying to force me to take you back? Is it the title that you covet, or do you long to shine in society? But remember that in order to do that, you would have radically to reform your habits."
"I have no intention of reforming and I don't care a fig for conventional society!"
"You tell me that you no longer love me and that you found existence with me unsupportable. Why then are you not willing to end it?"
"It is true, I no longer love you, but while I live, no other woman shall usurp my place."
"Your place! When you broke your marriage vows, you forfeited your right to a place in my life. But I will make a compact with you. You can have all the money you can possibly want as long as you neither do nor say anything to imperil the reputation of the young lady in question."
"All the wealth in the world could not buy my silence!"
"This is too horrible!" cried Cyril almost beside himself. "In order to shield a poor innocent child, you demand that I sacrifice my freedom, my future, even my honour? Have you no sense of justice, no pity?"
"None. I have said my last word. It is now for you to decide whether I am to go or stay. Well—which is it to be?"
Cyril looked into her white, set face; what he read there destroyed his last, lingering hope.
"Stay," he muttered through his clenched teeth.