"As your name?" suggested Leonard.
"As the name of the Treverton family," she continued, after a pause, during which her hand had been restlessly moving the letter to and fro on the table. "The husband shall be well-born—as well-born as you, Lenny—and the terrible discovery shall be, that his wife has no right to the ancient name that she bore when he married her."
"I can't say, my love, that I approve of your idea. Your story will decoy the reader into feeling an interest in a woman who turns out to be an impostor."
"No!" cried Rosamond, warmly. "A true woman—a woman who never stooped to a deception—a woman full of faults and failings, but a teller of the truth at all hazards and all sacrifices. Hear me out, Lenny, before you judge." Hot tears rushed into her eyes; but she dashed them away passionately, and went on. "The wife shall grow up to womanhood, and shall marry, in total ignorance—mind that!—in total ignorance of her real history. The sudden disclosure of the truth shall overwhelm her—she shall find herself struck by a calamity which she had no hand in bringing about. She shall be staggered in her very reason by the discovery; it shall burst upon her when she has no one but herself to depend on; she shall have the power of keeping it a secret from her husband with perfect impunity; she shall be tried, she shall be shaken in her mortal frailness, by one moment of fearful temptation; she shall conquer it, and, of her own free will, she shall tell her husband all that she knows herself. Now, Lenny, what do you call that woman? an impostor?"
"No: a victim."
"Who goes of her own accord to the sacrifice? and who is to be sacrificed?"
"I never said that."
"What would you do with her, Lenny, if you were writing the story? I mean, how would you make her husband behave to her? It is a question in which a man's nature is concerned, and a woman is not competent to decide it. I am perplexed about how to end the story. How would you end it, love?" As she ceased, her voice sank sadly to its gentlest pleading tones. She came close to him, and twined her fingers in his hair fondly. "How would you end it, love?" she repeated, stooping down till her trembling lips just touched his forehead.
He moved uneasily in his chair, and replied—"I am not a writer of novels, Rosamond."
"But how would you act, Lenny, if you were that husband?"