“Nothing on earth would make him marry you.  I would not for a moment have allowed him to allude to money if that had not been quite certain.”

“Who proposed the money first?”

Lady Augustus considered a moment before she answered.  “Upon my word, my dear, I can’t say.  He wrote the figures on a bit of paper; that was the way.”  Then she produced the scrap.  “He wrote the figures first,—­and then I altered them, just as you see.  The proposition came first from him, of course.”

“And you did not spit at him!” She tore the scrap into fragments.

“Arabella,” said the mother, “it is clear that you do not look into the future.  How do you mean to live?  You are getting old.”

“Old!”

“Yes, my love,—­old.  Of course I am willing to do everything for you, as I always have done,—­for so many years, but there isn’t a man in London who does not know how long you have been about it.”

“Hold your tongue, mamma” said Arabella jumping up.

“That is all very well, but the truth has to be spoken.  You and I cannot go on as we have been doing.”

“Certainly not.  I would sooner be in a work-house.”

“And here there is provided for you an income on which you can live.  Not a soul will know anything about it.  Even your own father need not be told.  As for the lawyer, that is nothing.  They never talk of things.  It would make a man comparatively poor quite a fit match.  Or, if you do not marry, it would enable you to live where you pleased independently of me.  You had better think twice of it before you refuse it.”

“I will not think of it at all.  As sure as I am living here I will write to Rufford this very evening and tell him in what light I regard both him and you.”

“And what will you do then?”

“Hang myself.”

“That is all very well, Arabella, but hanging yourself and jumping off Waterloo Bridge do not mean anything.  You must live, and you must pay your debts” I can’t pay them for you.  You go into your own room, and think of it all, and be thankful for what Providence has sent you.”

“You may as well understand that I am in earnest,” the daughter said as she left the room.  “I shall write to Lord Rufford to-day and tell him what I think of him and his money.  You need not trouble yourself as to what shall be done with it; for I certainly shall not take it.”

And she did write to Lord Rufford as follows: 

My Lord,

I have been much astonished by a letter I have received from a gentleman in London, Mr. Shaw, who I presume is your lawyer.  When I received it I had not as yet seen mamma.  I now understand that you and she between you have determined that I should be compensated by a sum of money for the injury you have done me!  I scorn your money.  I cannot think where you found the audacity to make such a proposal, or how you have taught yourself to imagine that I should listen to it.  As to mamma, she was not commissioned to act for me, and I have nothing to do with anything she may have said.  I can hardly believe that she should have agreed to such a proposal.  It was very little like a gentleman in you to offer it.