"And I shall be short with him and with you, for my own sake," rejoined Mr. Treverton. "No woman has ever yet had the chance of sharpening her tongue long on me, or ever shall. I have come here to say three things. First, your lawyer has told me all about the discovery in the Myrtle Room, and how you made it. Secondly, I have got your money. Thirdly, I mean to keep it. What do you think of that?"
"I think you need not give yourself the trouble of remaining in the room any longer, if your only object in coming here is to tell us what we know already," replied Leonard. "We know you have got the money; and we never doubted that you meant to keep it."
"You are quite sure of that, I suppose?" said Mr. Treverton. "Quite sure you have no lingering hope that any future twists and turns of the law will take the money out of my pocket again and put it back into yours? It is only fair to tell you that there is not the shadow of a chance of any such thing ever happening, or of my ever turning generous and rewarding you of my own accord for the sacrifice you have made. I have been to Doctors' Commons, I have taken out a grant of administration, I have got the money legally, I have lodged it safe at my banker's, and I have never had one kind feeling in my heart since I was born. That was my brother's character of me, and he knew more of my disposition, of course, than any one else. Once again, I tell you both, not a farthing of all that large fortune will ever return to either of you."
"And once again I tell you," said Leonard, "that we have no desire to hear what we know already. It is a relief to my conscience and to my wife's to have resigned a fortune which we had no right to possess; and I speak for her as well as for myself when I tell you that your attempt to attach an interested motive to our renunciation of that money is an insult to us both which you ought to have been ashamed to offer."
"That is your opinion, is it?" said Mr. Treverton. "You, who have lost the money, speak to me, who have got it, in that manner, do you?—Pray, do you approve of your husband's treating a rich man who might make both your fortunes in that way?" he inquired, addressing himself sharply to Rosamond.
"Most assuredly I approve of it," she answered. "I never agreed with him more heartily in my life than I agree with him now."
"Oh!" said Mr. Treverton. "Then it seems you care no more for the loss of the money than he does?"
"He has told you already," said Rosamond, "that it is as great a relief to my conscience as to his, to have given it up."
Mr. Treverton carefully placed a thick stick which he carried with him upright between his knees, crossed his hands on the top of it, rested his chin on them, and, in that investigating position, stared steadily in Rosamond's face.
"I rather wish I had brought Shrowl here with me," he said to himself. "I should like him to have seen this. It staggers me, and I rather think it would have staggered him. Both these people," continued Mr. Treverton, looking perplexedly from Rosamond to Leonard, and from Leonard back again to Rosamond, "are, to all outward appearance, human beings. They walk on their hind legs, they express ideas readily by uttering articulate sounds, they have the usual allowance of features, and in respect of weight, height, and size, they appear to me to be mere average human creatures of the regular civilized sort. And yet, there they sit, taking the loss of a fortune of forty thousand pounds as easily as Croesus, King of Lydia, might have taken the loss of a half-penny!"