However, for a time, that
will content me; when I want another I will come to you for it. I will
not call at your house; you can send me a check, bank note, or what you
will.
"I do not wish to seem harsh, but it is better to tell you at once that
if you refuse any money request of mine at any time I shall immediately
commence proceedings against you. I shall bring an action for breach of
promise of marriage, and all England will cry shame on the false,
mercenary woman who abandoned a poor lover, to whom her troth was
plighted, in order to marry a rich lord. All England shall despise you.
For your child's sake, I counsel you to avoid an exposure."
She read those terrible words over and over again. Suddenly the whole
plot grew clear to her. It was for this they had schemed and plotted.
Not for love of her, but to make money out of her, to trade upon her
weakness and folly, stain her character, her fair name, her happiness,
the love of her husband and child, the esteem of her friends. All lay in
their hands. They could, if they would, make her name, that noble name
which her husband bore so proudly, a subject of jest all over the world.
She could fancy the papers, their paragraphs, their remarks, their
comments. She could almost see the heading:
"Action for Breach of Promise against Lady Atherton." How the Radicals,
who hated her husband for his politics, would rejoice! Even in the years
to come, when her child grew to man's estate, it would be as a black
mark against him that his mother had been the subject of such vulgar
jest.
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