“I decline to tell you.”

“No matter—­I shall find out.  If that information is true—­mind I say, with the whole force of my resolution, if—­you are making your market of it here by treachery of your own or by treachery of some other man.  I note that circumstance for future use in my memory, which forgets nothing, and proceed.”  He held up another finger.  “Second question!  Those lines you invited me to read are without signature.  Who wrote them?”

“A man whom I have every reason to depend on, and whom you have every reason to fear.”

My answer reached him to some purpose.  His left hand trembled audibly in the drawer.

“How long do you give me,” he asked, putting his third question in a quieter tone, “before the clock strikes and the seal is broken?”

“Time enough for you to come to my terms,” I replied.

“Give me a plainer answer, Mr. Hartright.  What hour is the clock to strike?”

“Nine, to-morrow morning.”

“Nine, to-morrow morning?  Yes, yes—­your trap is laid for me before I can get my passport regulated and leave London.  It is not earlier, I suppose?  We will see about that presently—­I can keep you hostage here, and bargain with you to send for your letter before I let you go.  In the meantime, be so good next as to mention your terms.”

“You shall hear them.  They are simple, and soon stated.  You know whose interests I represent in coming here?”

He smiled with the most supreme composure, and carelessly waved his right hand.

“I consent to hazard a guess,” he said jeeringly.  “A lady’s interests, of course!”

“My Wife’s interests.”

He looked at me with the first honest expression that had crossed his face in my presence—­an expression of blank amazement.  I could see that I sank in his estimation as a dangerous man from that moment.  He shut up the drawer at once, folded his arms over his breast, and listened to me with a smile of satirical attention.

“You are well enough aware,” I went on, “of the course which my inquiries have taken for many months past, to know that any attempted denial of plain facts will be quite useless in my presence.  You are guilty of an infamous conspiracy!  And the gain of a fortune of ten thousand pounds was your motive for it.”

He said nothing.  But his face became overclouded suddenly by a lowering anxiety.

“Keep your gain,” I said. (His face lightened again immediately, and his eyes opened on me in wider and wider astonishment.) “I am not here to disgrace myself by bargaining for money which has passed through your hands, and which has been the price of a vile crime.

“Gently, Mr. Hartright.  Your moral clap-traps have an excellent effect in England—­keep them for yourself and your own countrymen, if you please.  The ten thousand pounds was a legacy left to my excellent wife by the late Mr. Fairlie.  Place the affair on those grounds, and I will discuss it if you like.  To a man of my sentiments, however, the subject is deplorably sordid.  I prefer to pass it over.  I invite you to resume the discussion of your terms.  What do you demand?”