“Well, I can’t go without money. That’s the position. And I want a good lot. I can’t lay hands on money at short notice, and you will have to find it. Besides, remember that, if you don’t accuse me, I am still Walter Brooklyn’s heir, and he is Sir Vernon’s. I understand it is most unlikely Sir Vernon will live to make another will. Now, how much can you provide—and how soon? That is the business proposition we have to settle between us. I am prepared to disappear for the present, and I will go further, for a suitable consideration—and promise never to come back to this country. But my condition is that I get half of whatever comes to Joan when Sir Vernon dies. How does that strike you?” Joan had listened with a feeling of nausea to Woodman’s confession. But now she broke in indignantly. “I am afraid,” she said, “that you are a little after the fair. It is quite true that, under my stepfather’s new will, you appear to be the principal heir. It is also true that my stepfather stood to inherit a large sum of money, _until Sir Vernon made a new will_.” Joan said these words very slowly and distinctly. As Woodman heard them the colour, which had quite come back, faded again from his face, and he stared at her with a consternation that deepened as she went on. “We had not quite finished our story. After your wicked bargain with my stepfather you attempted to raise money on the strength of being his, and therefore indirectly Sir Vernon’s, heir. I know how hard up you were—indeed pressure from creditors will, I hope, provide a good enough reason for your absconding now. If you choose to spread the report that you have died abroad, we shall certainly not object. But you will get no money from us. As I was saying, you went to Sir John Bunnery and tried to raise a large sum from him on the ground of your expectations. But you may not know that Sir John at once wrote privately to Sir Vernon to ask whether you were really the heir, or that yesterday Sir Vernon rallied enough to make a new will. That will, of course, excludes both you and my stepfather altogether.”