from my own resources, a certain annual sum of money, far more than sufficient for all your daughter’s expenses—­a sum payable quarterly, on condition that neither you nor she shall molest us; that you shall never make use of our name anywhere; and that the fact of my brother’s marriage (hitherto preserved a secret) shall for the future be consigned to oblivion. We keep our opinion of your daughter’s guilt—­you keep your opinion of her innocence. We have silence to buy, and you have silence to sell, once a quarter; and if either of us break our conditions, we both have our remedy—­your’s the easy remedy, our’s the difficult.  This arrangement—­a very unfair and dangerous for us; a very advantageous and safe one for you—­I understand that you finally refuse?’ ‘Sir,’ says he, solemnly, ’I should be unworthy the name of a father—­’ ’Thank you’—­I remarked, feeling that he was falling back on paternal sentiment—­’thank you; I quite understand.  We will get on, if you please, to the reverse side of the question.’”

“The reverse side!  What reverse side, Ralph?  What could you possibly say more?”

“You shall hear.  ‘Being, on your part, thoroughly determined,’ I said, ’to permit no compromise, and to make my brother (his family of course included) acknowledge a woman, of whose guilt they entertain not the slightest doubt, you think you can gain your object by threatening an exposure.  Don’t threaten any more!  Make your exposure!  Go to the magistrate at once, if you like!  Gibbet our names in the newspaper report, as a family connected by marriage with Mr. Sherwin the linen-draper’s daughter, whom they believe to have disgraced herself as a woman and a wife for ever.  Do your very worst; make public every shameful particular that you can—­what advantage will you get by it?  Revenge, I grant you.  But will revenge put a halfpenny into your pocket?  Will revenge pay a farthing towards your daughter’s keep?  Will revenge make us receive her?  Not a bit of it!  We shall be driven into a corner; we shall have no exposure to dread after you have exposed us; we shall have no remedy left, but a desperate remedy, and we’ll go to law—­boldly, openly go to law, and get a divorce.  We have written evidence, which you know nothing about, and can call testimony which you cannot gag.  I am no lawyer, but I’ll bet you five hundred to one (quite in a friendly way, my dear Sir!) that we get our case.  What follows?  We send you back your daughter, without a shred of character left to cover her; and we comfortably wash our hands of you altogether.’”

“Ralph!  Ralph! how could you—­”