"Just this. I have no interest whatever in your marrying this girl rather than in any other man's marrying her. It does not matter to me where my price comes from; I'm sure of it from her husband, whoever he may be, and I don't believe you're sure that she _will_ marry you. You have tried to keep me dark, and in the dark, cunningly enough; but I have found out more about them than you think for, for all that; and I know she has more than one string to her bow, and at least one of them more profitable to play upon than you are. If you can't persuade the girl to marry you before she's of age, and raise money for me upon her expectations, or if you can't in some way make things more comfortable, I shall try whether I cannot carry my information to a better market. Indeed, I am so tired of living respectably upon a pittance, paid with a dreary exactitude which is distressingly like Somerset House, I have been seriously contemplating an affecting visit to my relative Mrs. Carteret, and a family arrangement to buy me off at once at a long price." "And _my_ knowledge of the affair; what do you make of _that_, in your rascally calculation? "Not quite so much as _you_ make of it in _your_ rascally calculation, my good friend; for it is not knowledge at all, it is only guesswork; and you have not an atom of proof without my evidence, which I am quite as willing to withhold as to give, for Mr. Trapbois' omnipotent motive--a consideration." For all answer, Robert Meredith rose, opened an iron safe let into the wall of the room, and hidden by a curtain--greedily followed the while by the old man's eyes, which watched for the gold he hoped he had extorted--and took out a red-leather pocket-book, with a clasp of brass wirework. He came up to the old man's side, and opening a page of the memorandum-book, pointed to an entry upon it. "No evidence, I think you said. Not so fast, my faithful colleague. What is _that?_" "Initials, a date,--a guess, Meredith, a mere surmise, not an atom of proof." "And this?" Robert Meredith took an oblong slip of paper out of a pocket in the book, and held it up to the old man's eyes. "An attested copy of the marriage-register is evidence, I fancy." "Yes," said Mr. Oakley reluctantly; "that's evidence of one part of the story, to be sure; but not of the material part, the only part that's profitable to _you_. You can't do without me--you can't indeed; but I can do very well without you. You will save time and trouble by acknowledging the fact, and acting on it."