“You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is possible for a man to overreach himself in the effort to secure undue advantage.  Although I am not in any way bound to you, I am willing to supply you with a regular annuity—­in quarterly payments—­so long as you fulfil a promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood.  It is in your power to choose.  If you insist on remaining here, even for a short time, you will get nothing from me.  I shall decline to know you.”

“Ha, ha!” said Raffles, with an affected explosion, “that reminds me of a droll dog of a thief who declined to know the constable.”

“Your allusions are lost on me sir,” said Bulstrode, with white heat; “the law has no hold on me either through your agency or any other.”

“You can’t understand a joke, my good fellow.  I only meant that I should never decline to know you.  But let us be serious.  Your quarterly payment won’t quite suit me.  I like my freedom.”

Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down the room, swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly meditation.  At last he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and said, “I’ll tell you what!  Give us a couple of hundreds—­come, that’s modest—­ and I’ll go away—­honor bright!—­pick up my portmanteau and go away.  But I shall not give up my Liberty for a dirty annuity.  I shall come and go where I like.  Perhaps it may suit me to stay away, and correspond with a friend; perhaps not.  Have you the money with you?”

“No, I have one hundred,” said Bulstrode, feeling the immediate riddance too great a relief to be rejected on the ground of future uncertainties.  “I will forward you the other if you will mention an address.”

“No, I’ll wait here till you bring it,” said Raffles.  “I’ll take a stroll and have a snack, and you’ll be back by that time.”

Mr. Bulstrode’s sickly body, shattered by the agitations he had gone through since the last evening, made him feel abjectly in the power of this loud invulnerable man.  At that moment he snatched at a temporary repose to be won on any terms.  He was rising to do what Raffles suggested, when the latter said, lifting up his finger as if with a sudden recollection—­

“I did have another look after Sarah again, though I didn’t tell you; I’d a tender conscience about that pretty young woman.  I didn’t find her, but I found out her husband’s name, and I made a note of it.  But hang it, I lost my pocketbook.  However, if I heard it, I should know it again.  I’ve got my faculties as if I was in my prime, but names wear out, by Jove!  Sometimes I’m no better than a confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in.  However, if I hear of her and her family, you shall know, Nick.  You’d like to do something for her, now she’s your step-daughter.”

“Doubtless,” said Mr. Bulstrode, with the usual steady look of his light-gray eyes; “though that might reduce my power of assisting you.”