“Ha, ha, you cannot blame me for being a little cunning,” said Scrivener. “I repeat, you did your part of the job splendidly. If I had told you all, the fat would have been in the fire—you would never have had the courage.” “The courage! The cruelty, you mean,” said Hester, clasping her hands so tightly together that the veins almost started through the skin. “You must let me speak out, Jim Scrivener. You told me some, but not all—you deceived me. Did you think I’d have gone as far as I did if I had really known?” “No, that you would not, so I kept some to myself.” “You said you wanted to have a good look at the child—that you were really curious about him. You wanted to know if, by-and-by, not at present, but by-and-by, he might take to the business, the cursed black business which I hate at this moment as much as I hate you, Jim Scrivener. You asked me to send him round for you to squint at, as you expressed it. How could I tell you meant to kidnap him? When he never came back last night I guessed the whole, and I was fit to kill myself. I have been fit to kill myself ever since. And now, look here, Jim Scrivener, I won’t be your wife, not if it makes me the grandest lady in the land. If you don’t do something, and pretty quick, too, I’ll tell what I know. I don’t care if I do go to prison for it, I’ll tell what I know.” “Is that your real mind?” said Scrivener, coming up close to her and looking intently into her face. He wore an ugly look; there was a certain green tint about his face which the moonlight intensified. His small shifty eyes looked cruel. Hester, who had not much real courage, shrank away from him. “We’re ugly people, we are,” said Scrivener, “good to work with but ugly to meddle with—worse than ugly, dangerous, to cross. If you ain’t tired of the life that beats in that pretty little body of yours, Hester Winsome, you had better not talk in that way, for I may as well say out flat, it would not be worth an hour’s purchase if some of our folk knew what you just said. Look me full in the face, Hester, and repeat those words again if you dare.” “You know I do not dare, Jim,” she answered; “you know that you have a terrible power over me; you know that you have had it for a long time.” “Yes; you are completely and utterly in my power, body and soul,” said the man. As he spoke he slipped his arm round her waist and drew her close to him. “Body and soul, little girl,” he repeated, “you are in the power of Jim Scrivener, of the Silver School.” “Oh, don’t say it so loud,” she panted. “I won’t if you don’t drive me to it. There, now you look like your old self. Give us a kiss, gentle and pretty like. Why, I am so fond of you, Hetty, that there’s nothing I would not do for you but put my own neck in jeopardy, and that’s more than any girl can expect.”