“What—what do you mean?” Her voice trembled with fear, but she made no move to obey.
“Do what I tell you,” he said harshly.
“No! First I must know what I am to write.”
“You refuse?”
“Donald,” she cried piteously, “you can’t mean to ask me to give up everything—not now. Wait, dear—for Bobbie’s sake. No one has any claim on this money. I’ll give it all to you, to do with as you like, but I want Bobbie to have this summer. Don’t you see how well he looks—how brown and well and strong? I can’t let him go back to the city in all this heat—I can’t!” She was pleading now—desperately—for the sake of her boy.
“Will you do as I say?” he asked ominously.
The thought of the thing nerved her to sudden resistance. “No!” she declared angrily. “Not that way. You are asking more than you have any right to ask. I have been foolish, weak, disloyal, and I regret it most bitterly. You can do what you please, to me, but you shall not revenge yourself upon my boy. This money is mine. It was left to me by a man who loved me dearly. I am not dishonoring either him or you by using it to make others happy. You want me to sacrifice my mother’s happiness, my sister’s, my child’s—all to satisfy your sense of pride. Now that someone else is able to do something for me you resent it because you cannot do it. You have no right to ask me to throw aside this wonderful opportunity for doing good. What would you have me do with this money? Give it away? To whom, then, should I give it, if not to those who are closest and dearest to me? What you ask is selfish. You only want to satisfy your man’s pride, your so-called sense of honor. What is your sense of honor to me, when the welfare of my child is at stake? Do what you like, think what you like, but don’t ask me to give up this money, for I won’t do it—I won’t—I won’t!” She stood facing him, her hands clenched, her face flushed with passionate determination.
Donald looked at her in amazement. He had thought, after the discovery of her disloyalty, that she would accept his forgiveness at any price. “What you have just said,” he exclaimed slowly, “shows me that henceforth your path and mine lie far apart. I did not think that you could have said such things, that you could have so far forgotten your sense of honesty and right. Even after all that has happened, I thought that you still loved me.”
“I do—I do—and you know it.”
“No,” he said bitterly, “you do not love me. A woman who loves her husband would live on crusts, and go in rags, and beg from door to door before she would sell herself for a few miserable dollars. What if you did have to give up your expensive dresses, your fine house, your automobiles? Is that anything, compared with giving up your husband’s love? Do you think I want my child to owe his health, his happiness, the bed he sleeps on, the nurse who cares for him, the food he eats, the very clothes on his back, to the scoundrel who tried to ruin me, who tried to deal me a deadlier blow than if he had stabbed me in the back with a knife? What if your home was poor, and simple, and plain? What if it had no luxuries, no purple and fine linen? At least, it was honest; at least, I could hold up my head in it, and feel that it was all mine, that I was a man. Do you think I can do that here? Do you expect me to look about at all this luxury, and say to myself: God bless the man who stole my wife’s love from me, and gave me this in return? There may be men in the world who would take what you offer, and be glad of it, but I thank God I am not one of them. As long as you are my wife, what you have comes from me—do you understand, from me—and, whether it be much or little, for better or worse, you shall accept what I have, and make the best of it!”