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298
THE TENANT
calm insolence of mingled shamelessness and desperation.
"Only this," returned I: "will you let me take our child and what remains of my fortune, and go?"
"Go where?"
"Anywhere, where he will be safe from your contaminating influence, and I shall be delivered from your presence—and you from mine."
"No—by Jove I won't!"
"Will you let me have the child then, without the money?"
"No—nor yourself without the child. Do you think I'm going to be made the talk of the country, for your fastidious caprices?"
"Then I must stay here, to be hated and despised—But henceforth, we are husband and wife only in the name."
"Very good."
"I am your child's mother, and your housekeeper—nothing more. So you need not trou-
