Miss Butterworth expected that this intelligence would stun Mr. Belcher, but it did not.

The gratification of the man with the news was unmistakable.  Paul Benedict had no relatives or friends that he knew of.  All his dealings with him had been without witnesses.  The only person living besides Robert Belcher, who knew exactly what had passed between his victim and himself, was hopelessly insane.  The difference, to him, between obtaining possession of a valuable invention of a sane or an insane man, was the difference between paying money and paying none.  In what way, and with what profit, Mr. Belcher was availing himself of Paul Benedict’s last invention, no one in Sevenoaks knew; but all the town knew that he was getting rich, apparently much faster than he ever was before, and that, in a distant town, there was a manufactory of what was known as “The Belcher Rifle.”

Mr. Belcher concluded that he was still “master of the situation.”  Benedict’s testimony could not be taken in a court of justice.  The town itself was in his hands, so that it would institute no suit on Benedict’s behalf, now that he had come upon it for support; for the Tom Buffum to whom Miss Butterworth had alluded was the keeper of the poor-house, and was one of his own creatures.

Miss Butterworth had sufficient sagacity to comprehend the reasons for Mr. Belcher’s change of look and manner, and saw that her evening’s mission would prove fruitless; but her true woman’s heart would not permit her to relinquish her project.

“Is poor Benedict comfortable?” he inquired, in his old, off-hand way.

“Comfortable—­yes, in the way that pigs are.”

“Pigs are very comfortable, I believe, as a general thing,” said Mr. Belcher.

“Bob Belcher,” said Miss Butterworth, the tears springing to her eyes in spite of herself, and forgetting all the proprieties she had determined to observe, “you are a brute.  You know you are a brute.  He is in a little cell, no larger than—­than—­a pig-pen.  There isn’t a bit of furniture in it.  He sleeps on the straw, and in the straw, and under the straw, and his victuals are poked at him as if he were a beast.  He is a poor, patient, emaciated wretch, and he sits on the floor all day, and weaves the most beautiful things out of the straw he sits on, and Tom Buffum’s girls have got them in the house for ornaments.  And he talks about his rifle, and explains it, and explains it, and explains it, when anybody will listen to him, and his clothes are all in rags, and that little boy of his that they have in the house, and treat no better than if he were a dog, knows he is there, and goes and looks at him, and calls to him, and cries about him whenever he dares.  And you sit here, in your great house, with your carpets and chairs, that half smother you, and your looking-glasses and your fine clothes, and don’t start to your feet when I tell you this.  I tell you if God doesn’t damn everybody who is responsible for this wickedness, then there is no such thing as a God.”