It is enough that we do not belong together, because we are we and
cannot change. We are not only ruining each other's happiness--that is
already irrevocable,--we are ruining each other, and the children, and
their futures. It is a question of the least wrong. And I am not
coming back.

"I want the children, all of them. But if you insist, you take Sam
junior and I the girls--and the baby, of course, at least for the
present. And you shall provide for us proportionately. There is no use
pretending independence; I have given my strength and all the
accomplishments I had to you and them. And there is no sense in the
mock-heroics that I don't want your money. It isn't your money; it's
ours, everything we have. I have borne your children, and saved and
kept house and served and nursed for you and them. If you want to
divide equally now, I will take that as my share forever. But we can't
escape the fact that we have been married and have the children."

She could get an answer in two days.

But it did not come in two days, nor two weeks, nor three; while she
burned herself out waiting.

Moreover, her funds were running low. She had waves of the nausea of
defeat, fevers of the desperation of the last stand.

Then it occurred to her. Her armor had always been defensive. She had
never stooped to neutralize his alkali with acid. But there was one
weapon of offence she occasionally used. She wrote: "I am drawing on
you to-day through your First National for a hundred and fifty. You
will honor it, I think. And if I do not hear from you in a day or two