racked!

_Clem._ Don't leave me, Edward. Did you not say that for richer or for
poorer, for better or for worse, you would be mine, till death did us
part?

_Edw._ Did I?

_Clem._ You know you did, Edward.

_Edw._ It's astonishing how much nonsense we talk when in love. My
dearest Clementina, let us be rational. We are almost without a
sixpence. There is an old adage, that when poverty comes in at the door,
love flies out of the window. Shall I then make you miserable! No, no!
Hear me, Clementina. I will be generous. I now absolve you from all your
vows. You are free. Should the time ever come that prosperity shine upon
me, and I find that I have sufficient for both of us of that dross
which I despise, then will I return, and, should my Clementina not have
entered into any other engagement, throw my fortune and my person at her
feet. Till then, dearest Clementina, farewell!

_Clem._ (_sinking into a chair sobbing._) Cruel Edward! Oh, my heart
will break!

_Edw._ I can bear it myself no longer. Farewell! farewell!

[_Exit._

_Jel._ (_coming forward._) Well, this is some comfort. (_To
Clementina._) Did not I tell you, Miss, that if you did not change your
mind, others might?

_Clem._ Leave me, leave me.

_Jel._ No, I shan't; I have as good a right here as you, at all events.
I shall stay, Miss.

_Clem._ (_rising._) Stay then--but I shall not. Oh, Edward! Edward!

[_Exit, weeping._

_Jel._ (_alone._) Well, I really thought I should have burst--to be
forced not to allow people to suppose that I cared, when I should like
to tear the old wretch out of his coffin to beat him. _His_ wardrobe! If
people knew his wardrobe as well as I do, who have been patching at it
these last ten years--not a shirt or a stocking that would fetch
sixpence! And as for his other garments, why a Jew would hardly put them
into his bag! (_Crying._) Oh dear! oh dear! After all, I'm just like
Miss Clementina; for Sergeant O'Callaghan, when he knows all this, will
as surely walk off without beat of drum, as did Mr Edward--and that too
with all the money I have lent him. Oh these men! these men!--whether
they are living or dying there is nothing in them but treachery and
disappointment! When they pretend to be in love, they only are trying
for your money; and e'en when they make their wills, they leave to those
behind them nothing but _ill-will_!

[_Exit, crying, off the stage as the curtain falls._

How to write a