"You shall not give it back, Rose. I will not accept it. And more, I hold you to your promise still. Nothing which you can tell me will induce me to give you back yours."
"Not if you heard dreadful things against me?"
"I would not believe them. I know you too well for that. What do you take me for?"
"I take you for a noble-minded man. It is that which troubles me. I am not worth your caring for."
"You are my own, a part of my very self."
"You would not say so if you knew--that I have been married before!--if you were told that I am a divorced woman!"
"I would not believe them."
"But it is true."
"What a villain the man must have been!--what a fool!--to cast away the flower he was unworthy to have worn! But, my poor darling, if this is so, you have the deeper need of my protecting care."
"But it was I who divorced--him!"