"While you live!"
"Let me go on. I have not much to say. You could not prize a rose for its intrinsic value?"
"No; but for two other considerations--for the fact that it had once been yours, and for what the gift of it from you to me might signify."
"If I gave you a rose now it could signify nothing--mind, absolutely nothing. But if the mere fact that it belonged to me would make anything valuable in your eyes, I will give you my glove, or my bracelet, or this for your secret;" and she drew from her pocket the revolver and pointed it at him.
He started towards her at the sight of the weapon, crying angrily:
"What do you mean by carrying that? Great heavens, it cannot be that you came out here with the intention of committing suicide!"
He looked at her in horror.
"No," she answered quietly--"but with the intention of defending myself against you. I thought if I should meet you, and you had murdered my husband, and knew from me I had guessed it, that I might need this. But I have no evidence you did murder him, and I see no sign of guilt in you. Will you take it, or the bracelet, or the glove, or all three, and tell me about those transactions in which my husband was engaged with you?"
"It is not enough for my secret," he said.
"What more do you want? My purse?"