He replaced his watch in his pocket. He rose from his chair. There was, in his bearing a return to the manner of "the Villain at the Vic." The fellow was theatrical all through. All his moods were equally unreal. At the same time there was something about the change which I did not altogether relish. "Of course I mean it. You don't suppose that I am going to be robbed and plundered with impunity by you." "You prefer to hang?" "You know that I am as innocent of crime as you are, and probably much more so." "Don't lie to me, you hound!" He turned with a sweeping gesture towards my wife. "You must excuse me, madam, but you will do me the justice to remember that I suggested your departure from the room. I cannot allow your presence to debar me from plain speaking." Directing his attention again towards me, he began to button up his brand-new overcoat, with a deliberation which was, doubtless, intended to impress me. "As you have been lying in your bed, like a cur hiding in its kennel--because pray don't suppose that you can make me believe that you have been sick with anything else but terror--I don't know, my man, if you are aware that all England is on tiptoe, watching for your capture. If I were to point you out, at this moment, in any street in England, the people would tear you limb from limb. The whole country is thirsting, righteously thirsting, for your blood." "It is false!" "Is it? Refuse to give me what I ask, and I will prove to you if it is false." "I won't be robbed by you." "Then you'll be hung by me instead." He raised his hat, as if he was about to put it on his head. "Once more, and for the last time, which is it to be--the gallows or the hundred pounds?" "You'll get no hundred pounds from me. I swear it." "Then it will be the gallows. In ten minutes the news will be flashing through the land that justice has its hands about the murderer's neck." He clapped his hat upon his head. He moved towards the door. I went all hot and cold--anybody would have gone all hot and cold with such a prospect as the scoundrel pictured in front of him. Whether, with a view of appealing to his better self--if he had one, which I doubt--I should have prevented his leaving the room, is more than I can say. I might have done. After all, self-preservation is nature's first and greatest law. I had, and always should have, an incurable objection to being hanged by such a rascal. As it was, it was my wife that interposed. "One moment, sir, before you go." He removed his hat--with a flourish which, as usual, was reminiscent of the transpontine drama. "Madam, ten thousand, if you wish it." "Are you the person who travelled in the next compartment to my husband's from Brighton?" "Madam, I am." "You look it." The fellow might be excused for looking a little startled--which he certainly did do. I have found that particular tone of Lucy's, now and then, a little startling myself. The man did not seem as if he quite knew what to make of it.