But it is not so.

I have a helpless invalid dependent on me; and one of the hardest things in my life to bear has always been the fear that I might lose my health, and be unable to earn even the poor living we now have.

This sum, small as it is, will remove that fear, will enable me to insure for my mother a reasonable amount of comfort as long as she lives; and I cannot give it up.

I do not suppose, either, that it would make any difference in your feeling if I gave it up solely to please you, and not because I thought it wrong to keep it.

How any act which I honestly believe to be right, and which you know I honestly believe to be right, can put 'an impassable gulf between our souls for ever,' I do not understand.