"Oh! my father never intends to leave them more than a modest legacy. They have each inherited money from their father. No; understand me once for all, Rose. I must be the sole heir of all my father's wealth, with the exceptions I have named, and the sole successor to his business, without any exception whatever. You must live, serve him and bear with him only to obtain such an ascendency over him as to induce him to make such a will as I have dictated to you. You can do this. You can insinuate it so subtlely that he will never suspect the suggestion came from you. I say you can do this, and you must do it. The woman who could deceive and entrap old Aaron Rockharrt, the Iron King, into matrimony, can do anything else in the world that she pleases to do with him if only she will be as subtle, as patient, and as complacent to him after marriage as she had been before marriage."
"If Clarence is to be so provided for, Cora and Sylvan to have modest legacies, and you to have the huge bulk of the estate—where is my third to come from?"
"Why, my dear, I could never let you have so vast a slice out of the mammoth fortune! Your third of the estate must follow Clarence's share of the business—into nothingness. You must play magnanimity, sacrifice your third, and content yourself with a suitable provision," said Fabian, equably.
"I will never do that! I would not do it to save your life, Fabian Rockharrt!"
"Oh, yes, you will, my darling. Not to save my life, but to save yourself from being denounced to Mr. Rockharrt, and turned out of this house, destitute and degraded."
"I don't care if I should be! Do you think me quite a baby in your hands? I have been reflecting since you have been talking to me. I have been remembering that you told me that the law gives the widow one third of her late husband's property when he dies intestate, and entitles her to it, no matter what sort of a will he makes."
"Unless there has been a settlement, my angel," said Mr. Fabian, composedly.
"Well, there has been no settlement in my case. So whether Aaron Rockharrt should die intestate, or whether he should make a will, I am sure of my lawful third. So I defy you, Mr. Fabian Rockharrt. You may denounce me to your father He may turn me out of doors without a penny, and 'without a character,' as the servants say, but he cannot divorce me, because I have been faithful to him ever since our marriage. I could compel him by law to support me, even though he might not let me share his home. He would be obliged by law to give me alimony in proportion to his income, and, oh! what a magnificent revenue that would be for me—with freedom from his tyranny into the bargain! And at his death, which could not be long coming at his age, and after such a shock as his dutiful son proposes to give him, I should come in for my third. And, oh, where so rich a widow as I should be! With forty or fifty years of life before me in which to enjoy my fortune! Ah, you see, my clever Mr. Fabian Rockharrt, though you frightened me out of self-possession at first, when I come to think over the situation, I find that you can do me no great harm. If you should put your threats in execution and bring about a violent separation between myself and my husband, you would do me a signal favor, for I should gain my personal freedom, with a handsome alimony during his life, and at his death a third of his vast estate," she concluded, snapping her fingers in his face.
"I think not."
"Yes; I would."