"She shall give me five hundred to-day--this very morning; that will make nineteen hundred and twenty--say eighteen hundred clear, to break the bank at Monaco. If she likes to come with me, she can. I am sick of this game; there's too much to lose. To-morrow night shall be my last night here. I have searched every inch of this cursed room, and I throw it up. It is a slave's work, not a gentleman's." He certainly looked as little like a gentleman as any human being could, and his words proclaimed the utter villainy of his nature. "There's too much danger in it," he continued. "If the police were to take it in their heads to make another examination of this house, or if that weak idiot, Frederick Holdfast, were to turn up, I should find myself in the hole. And _she_ should, too; I'd make her suffer with me. A nice reward for all my scheming in America! Well, it kept them apart--I can count that to my credit. But for me, the old dotard and Frederick must have met. I owed him one for the part he played in the Sydney Campbell affair in Oxford--I owed him one, and I have paid it. And if I had him here, I'd serve him as I served--" He did not conclude his sentence; a sudden terror seized him, and he shook like a man in an ague. "I could have sworn I heard a voice," he muttered. "Hush!" For a few moments he did not move; his feet were transfixed to the ground. By a strong effort he recovered himself, and a ghastly smile disfigured his face. "To-morrow night shall be the last," he said! "I swear it! I'll commence to enjoy my life again. This is not the only country in the world." And, shading the light of his candle with his hand, he left the room. Frederick Holdfast did not move from his post till he had given Richard Manx ample time to reach his garret in the next house. Then he descended with difficulty, for his limbs were cramped. As he stepped from the table to the ground his foot slipped, and the table overbalanced, fell with a crash on its side. He congratulated himself upon his forethought in waiting till Richard Manx was out of hearing, but not knowing what might be the consequences of the noise--for it might have disturbed the inmates of either, or of both, the adjoining houses--he unlocked the door, and made his way as quickly as he could, consistent with necessary caution, to the basement, where in the course of another hour he sought a little rest, with his revolver firmly clenched in his hand. CHAPTER XXXIX. MRS. HOLDFAST INSISTS UPON BECOMING AN ACTIVE PARTNER.