"Exactly so; exactly so. His future lies in your hands. You can avert his punishment--that is to say he can avert it through you. Listen to me. You may love Gerald Arkel, but you do not know him. He is the weakest, blindest, most easily led of men. It is through his weakness that I intend he shall suffer. It shall be my strength--unless he be wise in time and grasp the chance fate offers him. I intend he shall be my heir. I need not name the sum he will inherit; but it will not be small. And it shall be his damnation, his ruin. By means of it he will sink to the depths of infamy--of degradation, to perdition utterly. So shall he expiate the bitter wrong that has ruined my life--so shall he suffer for the sin of his cursed mother. Still I am not merciless. He has two women now from whom to choose. If he choose the right one, well and good. Such an influence as yours over him is the only thing that can save him, for you are a good woman. That is why I brought you here. But if he choose the other--the brainless, shallow minx with whom he thinks he is in love, then will his downfall be more rapid a hundred times. Now you know his chance and yours." "But--but." Miriam was more and more bewildered. "But why choose me--you know nothing about me really, and what you do know is not on the face of it very reputable. How can you be sure that I am what you seem to think me?" "I am sure of it. I knew it the first moment I saw your face; but still, I did not trust to that. I made inquiries; nothing was overlooked. I was very careful--you forget I had ample time and opportunity whilst you were recovering your health at the hotel." Miriam turned pale. "But how could you do that? I told you nothing of myself. You had nothing to go upon." "I had sufficient for my purpose. I had Jabez, you told me about him. I learned what you had been to him--how in the midst of all corruption you had kept yourself pure, how your strength of purpose and never-flinching spirit had been exercised for him, how you had encouraged him and helped him and stuck to him through all tribulation, even to starvation--for you were starving on that night, Miriam. All this I learned, and more, and so I determined that you were the woman who should stand for the salvation of this man, and I brought you here that you might marry him if you would, and save him from himself. You see, I am not altogether so bad as you think me." "Indeed, I don't know what to say, Mr. Barton. It is all so very strange to me. Surely it would be better to leave your money where it would do good, not evil--to Major Dundas, for instance."