“Not they!  I passed one bobby fellow on the hill, going safely away north, as I came down.  I was scarcely three yards from him, and he never twigged.  And the other’s gone to Millsborough.  You could hardly be more alone, more entirely at my mercy—­than you are at this moment, Miss Henderson!” He laid an ironic emphasis on the name.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“All the same the people who live with me in this house will soon be back.  I recommend you to make haste.  I ask you again—­what is it you want?”

She had stood up pluckily—­he admitted it.  But, as he observed her closely it seemed to him that the strain on her nerves was telling.  She was beginning to look pinched, and her hand as it lay beside her knitting shook.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said coolly.  He took a half sheet of note-paper out of the breast-pocket of his coat, drew the lamp on the table towards him, and looked at certain figures and notes written on the paper.

“I went this morning in town to look up your uncle’s will.  Of course I remember all about that old chap at Manchester.  I often speculated on what he was going to leave you.  Unfortunately for me he lived just a little too long.  But I find from the copy of the will that he left you—­three—­thousand—­pounds.  Not bad, considering that you were never at all civil to him.  But three thousand pounds is more than you require to run this small farm on.  You owe me damages for the injury you inflicted on me by the loss of—­first, your society; second, your financial prospects.  I assess it at five hundred pounds.  Pay me that small sum, and—­well, I engage to leave you henceforth to the Captain,—­and your conscience.”

He bent forward across the table, his mocking eyes fixed intently upon her.  There was silence a moment—­till she said:—­

“And if I refuse?”

“Oh, well, then—­” he lifted a paper-knife and balanced it on his hand as though considering—­“I shall of course have to work up my case.  What do you call this man?—­John Dempsey?  A great fool—­but I dare say I shall get enough out of him.  And then—­well, then I propose to present the story to Captain Ellesborough—­for his future protection.”

“He won’t believe a word of it.”

But her lips had blanched—­her voice had begun to waver—­and with a cruel triumph he saw that he had won the day.

“I dare say not.  That’s for him to consider.  But if I were you, I wouldn’t put him to the test.”

Silence again.  He saw the fluttering of her breath.  With a complete change of tone, he said, smiling, in a low voice:—­

“Rachel!—­when did you begin to prefer Dick Tanner to me?  No doubt you had a jolly time with him.  I suppose I can’t undo the divorce—­but you would never have got it, if I hadn’t been such an innocent.”

She sprang up, and he saw that he had gone too far.

“If you say any more such things to me, you will get nothing from me—­and you may either go—­” she pointed passionately to the door—­“or you may sit there till my people come back—­which you like.”