“You’d never be satisfied,” I says, “You know you wouldn’t. You’ve settled that once, let it stay settled. We can get along.”

“I leave everything to you,” she says. “But sometimes I become afraid that in doing this I am depriving you all of what is rightfully yours. Perhaps I shall be punished for it. If you want me to, I will smother my pride and accept them.”

“What would be the good in beginning now, when you’ve been destroying them for fifteen years?” I says. “If you keep on doing it, you have lost nothing, but if you’d begin to take them now, you’ll have lost fifty thousand dollars. We’ve got along so far, haven’t we?” I says. “I haven’t seen you in the poorhouse yet.”

“Yes,” she says, “We Bascombs need nobody’s charity. Certainly not that of a fallen woman.”

She struck the match and lit the check and put it in the shovel, and then the envelope, and watched them burn.