"Mr. Darvil, be ruled. You seem a man not deaf to reason, and I ask you whether, in any town in this country, a poor man in suspicious circumstances can do anything against a rich man whose character is established? Perhaps you are right in the main: I have nothing to do with that. But I tell you that you shall quit this house in half an hour--that you shall never enter it again but at your peril; and if you do--within ten minutes from that time you shall be in the town gaol. It is no longer a contest between you and your defenceless daughter; it is a contest between--" "A tramper in fustian, and a gemman as drives a coach," interrupted Darvil, laughing bitterly, yet heartily. "Good--good!" The banker rose. "I think you have made a very clever definition," said he. "Half an hour--you recollect--good evening." "Stay," said Darvil; "you are the first man I have seen for many a year that I can take a fancy to. Sit down--sit down, I say, and talk a bit, and we shall come to terms soon, I dare say;--that's right. Lord! how I should like to have you on the roadside instead of within these four gimcrack walls. Ha! ha! the argufying would be all in my favour then." The banker was not a brave man, and his colour changed slightly at the intimation of this obliging wish. Darvil eyed him grimly and chucklingly. The rich man resumed: "That may or may not be, Mr. Darvil, according as I might happen or not to have pistols about me. But to the point. Quit this house without further debate, without noise, without mentioning to any one else your claim upon its owner--" "Well, and the return?" "Ten guineas now, and the same sum quarterly, as long as the young lady lives in this town, and you never persecute her by word or letter." "That is forty guineas a year. I can't live upon it." "You will cost less in the House of Correction, Mr. Darvil." "Come, make it a hundred: Alley is cheap at that." "Not a farthing more," said the banker, buttoning up his breeches pockets with a determined air. "Well, out with the shiners." "Do you promise or not?" "I promise." "There are your ten guineas. If in half an hour you are not gone--why, then--" "Then?" "Why, then you have robbed me of ten guineas, and must take the usual consequences of robbery." Darvil started to his feet--his eyes glared--he grasped the carving-knife before him. "You are a bold fellow," said the banker, quietly; "but it won't do. It is not worth your while to murder me; and I am a man sure to be missed." Darvil sank down, sullen and foiled. The respectable man was more than a match for the villain. "Had you been as poor as I,--Gad! what a rogue you would have been!" "I think not," said the banker; "I believe roguery to be a very bad policy. Perhaps once I /was/ almost as poor as you are, but I never turned rogue."