"Not exactly!" he sneered; "I don't think you and I would just suit one another. Listen," he resumed, quietly, looking towards the door, and drawing closer to her, and sinking his voice as he spoke, "The girl is here--you understand?" "I confess I do not see your drift," she said, wishing to draw him on to a full disclosure. "Pshaw! Clara, you are not a fool; you understand me well enough." "Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't." "Your eyes are not so blind that you cannot see when it is to your own interests. But there's no use in beating about the bush or mincing matters; you know this girl here." "What! Susan Hartshorne--that poor idiot?" she exclaimed with well-acted amazement and horror. "That same and no other," replied Markworth, positively blushing at being obliged actually to confess his own villainy. "But she's not an idiot, she's only foolish--half-silly; and there's no harm in it," he continued, half apologetically. "And you want to marry her?" said the other. "I do not _want_ to marry her; I _mean_ to marry her!" answered Markworth, quite himself again, and with his usual coolness and _sang froid_, "and you must help me. Listen! That girl has a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. I am so hard run for money that unless I get some before the present month is up, I shall be ruined--that girl has money which she does not want, and can never feel the need of--do you follow me?--consequently I mean to marry that girl. Nobody cares for her here; her mother, I daresay, will be glad to get rid of her, and the girl will suffer no loss." "You will take care of her, I suppose!" said the governess, in her pleasant biting way. "Yes, I will take care of her--as good care, I daresay, as she gets now." "Well, and supposing I lent myself to your purposes, what am I to get-- what is to be my share in the transaction? You don't suppose I am going to assist you and risk my situation for nothing?" "I tell you what, Clara, if you help me in the affair I'll give you two hundred pounds; I can't give you more now, and I'll have hard work to get that, for I daresay I will have to go through a long law suit before I can get her fortune, and spend most of it, perhaps, in doing so, even if I do succeed in marrying the girl and getting her off." "It's little enough! but how shall I know that you will pay me?--you have cheated me before, Markworth, and I would not trust your word for sixpence." "You need not if you don't like, but I'll act fairly in the matter. I will give you a hundred before I get the girl away, and another hundred after I am married to her. There, will that do? If I don't pay you, you can expose the whole affair; and if you go back on me you will implicate yourself afterwards; so it serves both our purposes to act squarely. Do you know what the girl's age is?" "Yes, twenty-one; I saw her age in the old family Bible, which Mrs Hartshorne keeps up-stairs in her own room."