"You had better sit down again. I shall be some time here." As though involuntarily, Mitford re-seated himself. He had scarcely done so when she said: "You did not expect me? You don't seem glad to see me?" "Are you surprised at that?" he sneered. "I should be glad never to set eyes on you again." "Exactly; as we used to say in the old days, 'them's my sentiments.' I reciprocate your cordial feelings entirely. And I can't conceive what adverse fate drove you to come with a pack of swaggering, sporting, vulgar people, into a part of the country where I happened to be quietly and comfortably settled; for, as I pointed out to you at our last interview, I was the original settler, and it is you who have intruded yourself into my territory." "You did not come here to repeat that, I suppose?" "Of course not; and that's exactly a point I want to impress upon you--that I never repeat. I hint, I suggest, I command, or I warn--once; after that I act." "You act now, you're always acting, you perpetually fancy yourself on the boards. But it does not amuse me, nor suit me either, and I won't have it. What did you come here for?" "Not to amuse you, Sir Charles Mitford, you may be certain, nor to be amused myself; for a heavier specimen of our landed gentry than yourself is not, I should hope for the credit of the country, to be found. You were never much fun; and it was only your good looks, and a certain soft manner that you had, that made you get on at all in our _camaraderie_. No; I came here on business." "On business! Ah, it's not very difficult to imagine what kind of business. You want money, of course, like the rest of them." "I want money, and come to _you_ for it! No, Charles Mitford; you ought to know me better than that. You ought to know that if I were starving, I would steal a loaf from a child, or rob a church, rather than take, much more ask for, a single penny from you. Like the rest of them, did you say? So they have found you out and begun to bleed you!--the pitiful curs!" "Well, what do you want, then? My time's precious." "It is indeed, my friend; if you did but know all, you'd find it very precious indeed. But never mind that; now for my business. I want you to do something." "And that is--"