Clem. You know you did, Edward.
Edw. It’s astonishing how much nonsense we talk when in love. My dearest Clementina, let us be rational. We are almost without a sixpence. There is an old adage, that when poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window. Shall I then make you miserable! No! no! Hear me, Clementina. I will be generous. I now absolve you from all your vows. You are free. Should the time ever come that prosperity shine upon me, and I find that I have sufficient for both of us of that dross which I despise, then will I return, and, should my Clementina not have entered into any other engagement, throw my fortune and my person at her feet. Till then, dearest Clementina, farewell!
Clem. (sinking into a chair sobbing.) Cruel Edward! Oh, my heart will break!
Edw. I can bear it myself no longer. Farewell! farewell! (Exit.)
Jel. (coming forward.) Well, this is some comfort.—(To Clementina.) Did I not tell you, Miss, that if you did not change your mind, others might?
Clem. Leave me, leave me.
Jel. No, I shan’t; I have as good a right here as you, at all events. I shall stay, Miss.
Clem. (rising.) Stay then—but I shall not. Oh, Edward! Edward! (Exit, weeping.)
Jel. (alone.) Well, I really thought I should have burst—to be forced not to allow people to suppose that I cared, when I should like to tear the old wretch out of his coffin to beat him. His wardrobe! If people knew his wardrobe as well as I do, who have been patching at it these last ten years—not a shirt or a stocking that would fetch sixpence! And as for his other garments, why a Jew would hardly put them into his bag! (Crying.) Oh dear! oh dear! After all, I’m just like Miss Clementina; for Sergeant O’Callaghan, when he knows all this, will as surely walk off without beat of drum, as did Mr Edward—and that too with all the money I have lent him. Oh these men! these men!—whether they are living or dying there is nothing in them but treachery and disappointment! When they pretend to be in love, they only are trying for your money; and even when they make their wills, they leave to those behind them nothing but ill-will.
(Exit, crying, off the stage as the curtain falls.)