Before she appeared Lancelot heard a man’s voice, somewhere in the entry, saying—-

“Oh! the young ass has been fool enough to let it out, has he?  I suppose this is the chap that will profit?  You’ll have your wits about you.”

Lance was still his old self enough to receive the lady with—-

“I beg to observe that I am not the ‘chap who will profit’ if this miserable allegation holds water.  I am come to understand the truth.”

The woman looked frightened, and the man came to her rescue, having evidently heard, and this Lance preferred, for he always liked to deal with mankind rather than womankind.  Having gone so far there was not room for reticence, and the man took up the word.

“Madame cannot be expected to disclose anything to the prejudice of her son and herself, unless it was made worth her while.”

“Perhaps not,” said Lance, as he looked her over in irony, and drew the conclusion that the marriage was a fact accomplished; “but she has demanded two hundred pounds from her son, on peril of exposure, and if the facts are not substantiated, there is such a thing as an action for conspiracy, and obtaining money on false pretences.”

“Nothing has been obtained!” said the woman, beginning to cry.  “He was very hard on his poor mother.”

“Who forsook him as an infant, cast off his father, and only claims him in order to keep a disgraceful, ruinous secret hanging over his life for ever, in order to extort money.”

“Come now, this is tall talk, sir,” said O’Leary; “the long and short of it is, what will the cove, yourself, or whoever it is that you speak for, come down for one way or another?”

“Nothing,” responded Lance.

Neither of the estimable couple spoke or moved under an announcement so incredible to them, and he went on—-

“Gerald Underwood would rather lose everything than give hush-money to enable him to be a robber, and my elder brother would certainly give no reward for what would be the greatest grief in his life.”

O’Leary grinned as if he wanted to say, “Have you asked him?”

“The priest,” she muttered.

“Ay, the meddling parson who has done for you!  He would have to come down pretty handsomely.”

Lancelot went on as if he had not heard these asides.

“I am a magistrate; I can give you in charge at once to the police, and have you brought before the Mayor for conspiracy, when you will have to prove your words, or confess them to be a lie.”

He was not in the least certain that where there was no threatening letter, this could succeed, but he knew that the preliminaries would be alarming enough to elicit something, and accordingly Mrs. O’Leary began to sob out—-

“It was when I was a mere child, a bambina, and he used me so cruelly.”