‘What is it you want me to do?’ he asked huskily.  ’Just speak plain, can’t you?’

’If you can’t understand—­if you won’t, that is—­it’s no good speakin’ plainer.’

’You said the other night as you didn’t care about his money.  If you think he means hookin’ it, let him go, and good riddance.’

‘That’s a fool’s way of talkin’.  I’m not goin’ to lose it all, if I can help it.  There’s a way of stoppin’ him, and of gettin’ the money too.’

They both stared down at the water; it was full tide, and the muddy surface looked almost solid.

‘You wouldn’t get it all,’ were Bob’s next words.  ’I’ve been asking about that.’

‘You have?  Who did you ask?’

’Oh, a feller you don’t know.  You’d only have a third part of it, and the girl ‘ud get the rest.’

‘What do you call a third part?’

So complete was her stupidity, that Bob had to make a laborious explanation of this mathematical term, She could have understood what was meant by a half or a quarter, but the unfamiliar ‘third’ conveyed no distinct meaning.

‘I don’t care,’ she said at length.  ’That ‘ud be enough.’

’Clem—­you’d better leave this job alone.  You’d better, I warn you.’

‘I shan’t,’

Another long silence.  A steamboat drew up to the Temple Pier, and a yellow shaft of sunlight fell softly upon its track in the water.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Bob recommenced. ‘How?’

Their eyes met, and in the woman’s gaze he found a horrible fascination, a devilish allurement to that which his soul shrank from.  She lowered her voice.

’There’s lots of ways.  It ’ud be easy to make it seem as somebody did it just to rob him.  He’s always out late at night.’

His face was much the colour of the muddy water yellowed by that shaft of sunlight.  His lips quivered.  ’I dursn’t, Clem.  I tell you plain, I dursn’t.’

‘Coward!’ she snarled at him, savagely.  ’Coward!  All right, Mr. Bob.  You go your way, and I’ll go mine.’

‘Listen here, Clem,’ he gasped out, laying his hand on her arm.  ’I’ll think about it.  I won’t say no.  Give me a day to think about it.’

‘Oh, we know what your thinkin’ means.’

They talked for some time longer, and before they parted Bob had given a promise to do more than think.

The long, slouching strides with which he went up from the Embankment to the Strand gave him the appearance of a man partly overcome with drink.  For hours he walked about the City, in complete oblivion of everything external.  Only when the lights began to shine from shop-windows did he consciously turn to his own district.  It was raining now.  The splashes of cool moisture made him aware how feverishly hot his face was.

When he got among the familiar streets he went slinkingly, hurrying round corners, avoiding glances.  Almost at a run he turned into Merlin Place, and he burst into his room as though he were pursued.