“Anne,” he said, with a fiendish look in his eyes, but with the calm gravity of a just avenger, “I am going to strangle you”—and he went nearer and bent over her. He had no intention of carrying out his threat, it was a luxury he dared not afford himself, but he wanted to torture and frighten her till she quailed before him. For only one moment was his desire satisfied. “If you dare to touch me——” she said, and a shriek burst from her. There was the sound of a door opening and of footsteps entering. “Jane!” shouted Aunt Anne, “Jane!” Jane opened the door and looked in. “If you please, ma’am, I heard Mr. Knox, the policeman, go by, and you said you wanted him.” Alfred Wimple stared at her in astonishment, and his face blanched. Aunt Anne recovered her self-possession in a moment, though she trembled from head to foot. “If you will ask him to stay in the kitchen, I will speak to him,” she said. Then she turned to Alfred Wimple again. “You will only get yourself laughed at,” he said. She was silent a moment; she saw what was in his thoughts and took advantage of it. “You do not deserve my clemency,” she said, “but I will extend it to you, provided you go from the house this minute. If you do not I shall take measures to punish you.” He was trembling, and could not speak. She opened the door. “Jane,” she called, “get Mr. Wimple’s portmanteau; have you put everything into it?” “Everything but the slippers. It’s raining, ma’am,” Jane added, not in the least understanding what was going on. But Aunt Anne had shut the door, and turned to Alfred Wimple again. “Now you will go,” she said. “I cannot go in the rain,” he answered, and made a sound in his throat; “you know how bad my cough is. You cannot turn me out in this weather. I was angry just now; but I did not mean it. I was only trying to frighten you.” “You will go immediately,” she said; “you shall not remain another hour under my roof.” “It will kill me to go in this rain,” he said doggedly. “You would have killed me when you thought you would get William Rammage’s money by it; and just now you threatened me, Alfred. You are not fit to remain another hour in the same house with the woman you have wronged, and you shall not. Your coat is in the hall, ready for you”—and she went towards the door. “You will go this very moment, and you will never venture to come near me again.” “I have been coughing all day,” he almost pleaded, utterly confounded by the turn things had taken. “I brought you some lozenges from London, before I knew all your baseness”—and she fumbled in her pocket. “Here they are, and you can take them with you.” She put them down before him on the table, and went slowly out to the kitchen. “Officer,” she said, “I will not detain you about the wood this evening. I want you to walk with Mr. Wimple as far as Steggall’s, and see him into a waggonette; and there,” she added, in a low voice, “is a half-crown to recompense you for your trouble.”