“The remote chance, Percival—­the remote chance only.  And you want money, at once.  In your position the gain is certain—­the loss doubtful.”

“Speak for yourself as well as for me.  Some of the money I want has been borrowed for you.  And if you come to gain, my wife’s death would be ten thousand pounds in your wife’s pocket.  Sharp as you are, you seem to have conveniently forgotten Madame Fosco’s legacy.  Don’t look at me in that way!  I won’t have it!  What with your looks and your questions, upon my soul, you make my flesh creep!”

“Your flesh?  Does flesh mean conscience in English? speak of your wife’s death as I speak of a possibility.  Why not?  The respectable lawyers who scribble-scrabble your deeds and your wills look the deaths of living people in the face.  Do lawyers make your flesh creep?  Why should I?  It is my business to-night to clear up your position beyond the possibility of mistake, and I have now done it.  Here is your position.  If your wife lives, you pay those bills with her signature to the parchment.  If your wife dies, you pay them with her death.”

As he spoke the light in Madame Fosco’s room was extinguished, and the whole second floor of the house was now sunk in darkness.

“Talk! talk!” grumbled Sir Percival.  “One would think, to hear you, that my wife’s signature to the deed was got already.”

“You have left the matter in my hands,” retorted the Count, “and I have more than two months before me to turn round in.  Say no more about it, if you please, for the present.  When the bills are due, you will see for yourself if my ‘talk! talk!’ is worth something, or if it is not.  And now, Percival, having done with the money matters for to-night, I can place my attention at your disposal, if you wish to consult me on that second difficulty which has mixed itself up with our little embarrassments, and which has so altered you for the worse, that I hardly know you again.  Speak, my friend—­and pardon me if I shock your fiery national tastes by mixing myself a second glass of sugar-and-water.”

“It’s very well to say speak,” replied Sir Percival, in a far more quiet and more polite tone than he had yet adopted, “but it’s not so easy to know how to begin.”

“Shall I help you?” suggested the Count.  “Shall I give this private difficulty of yours a name?  What if I call it—­Anne Catherick?”

“Look here, Fosco, you and I have known each other for a long time, and if you have helped me out of one or two scrapes before this, I have done the best I could to help you in return, as far as money would go.  We have made as many friendly sacrifices, on both sides, as men could, but we have had our secrets from each other, of course—­haven’t we?”

“You have had a secret from me, Percival.  There is a skeleton in your cupboard here at Blackwater Park that has peeped out in these last few days at other people besides yourself.”