“They will meet here,” muttered Learmont. “Well, be it so. Three persons so strangely knit together, as these two men and myself, were surely never heard of. Hating them with that hatred which requires to be glutted with blood to calm its fury; yet I am obliged to supply their wildest extravagancies and most insolent demands. Oh, if I, dared, if—oh, you are here, Jacob Gray?” “As you perceive, most worshipful sir,” said Gray, as he closed the door behind him, and fixed his keen, ferret-looking eyes upon the Squire. For a few minutes they regarded each other in silence. Learmont at length, uttered the word,— “Well?” “I am rejoiced to hear you are well,” sneered Gray. “The fog last night was very damp.” “Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, “I sought your life.” “Your worship was so kind,” said Gray, “and since my connexion with your worship has grown so dangerous, it shall bear a higher price.” “What mean you?” “I mean,” said Gray, striking the palm of his hand with his fist—“I mean that where I have had one guinea, Squire Learmont, I will have ten; where ten, a hundred. Thank yourself for raising my price. My nerves are weak, and yet I prize them. I like my blood to keep its even pace. If I am to be tortured—if I am to be threatened—broken in upon at midnight, and cold steel held to my throat, I will be well paid—extremely well paid. You understand me, Squire Learmont, I have raised my price.” There was a strange mixture of cunning, rage, and ferocity in Jacob Gray’s tone and manner as he made this speech. Every other word that he spoke showed a disposition to shout with anger, but then it was as quickly subdued again by his habitual caution and timidity. When he had finished he glared at Learmont with a pale and distorted countenance awaiting his reply. “Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, “I did seek your life, but it was not for your life’s sake I sought it.” “Indeed!” sneered Gray. “No,” continued Learmont. “What is your life to me? But the precautions that you have taken to protect yourself keep me in continual and imminent danger. What’s so uncertain as human life?” “Ay—what?“ said Gray. “Suppose your sudden death—by accident or illness—what though I had poured into your coffers half my income?—What though I had satisfied your wildest demands, still might I be exposed to danger most imminent, nay, to death without your meaning so to involve me.” “Well I know,” said Jacob Gray, “that life is uncertain—too well I know if, Squire Learmont, you have coined for yourself the danger you describe. While you live, it will haunt you.” “But wherefore should I?” said Learmont. “You talk of increasing your demands by tens and hundreds—why not name thousands at once as the price of—” “Of what?” “The boy, and your absence for ever from England.” “I—I—had thought of that,” said Gray.