Lucy turned to me with a smile hovering about her lips, which, under the circumstances, I thought was a little out of place. "I have done it, as you say." "You don't seem to be aware of what you've done. What's the good of talking to him like that? Do you suppose that you can frighten him--that you can take him in? He knows very well that whatever happens to me he'll go scatheless. He's the one witness whom the prosecution will not be able to do without." "I think you are mistaken. With a man of that type the high horse is the only horse you ought to ride. He desires nothing less than to get into the witness-box, or I misjudge the man. I suspect that his own record is not of a kind which he would care to have exposed to the cross-examining light of day." Hardly were the words out of her mouth than there came a tap at the panel of the door. Lucy shot a glance towards me. "Who's there?" she asked. Whom should it be but our friend the scoundrel. He came in with quite a dove-like air of mildness, mincing, like a dancing-master, on his toes. "Excuse me, but even on the front door steps my heart got the upper hand of me. I could not do what seemed even to approximate to cruelty. I could not hang anybody--I judge not, so that I may not be judged. My one aspiration is, and always has been, to be a friend in need. I cannot help it, but so I am." Producing a parti-coloured silk handkerchief--brand new--he manipulated it in such a manner as to diffuse an odour of perfume through the room. My wife looked him up and down. Her tone was dry. "Your sentiments do you credit." "They do, I know it; but, such as they are, they are mine own." He coughed. "So far as I am personally concerned, financial considerations are as nothing. It is circumstances which weigh me down. Instead of one hundred pounds, suppose we say seventy-five--in a cheque and cash." Lucy took upon herself to answer him-- "I am afraid we cannot say seventy-five." "Merely as a temporary advance, till Monday. I expect remittances on Monday, very large remittances, from my agents." Lucy's tone was even drier than before. "I am glad to hear it." "Yes, quite so." The fellow glanced towards me. He came sneaking towards my bed. He spoke to me under cover of his hat. "I think, Mr. Tennant, if you were to ask your good lady to withdraw, and were to allow me to have one word with you, between ourselves, in private--just one--I know we should understand each other; I am sure we should." I looked at Lucy. She also looked at me. I am bound to admit that what I saw in her eyes supplied me, to a certain extent, with the moral stamina in which, owing to the severe illness from which I had recently been suffering, I was temporarily deficient. I spoke to the fellow plainly-- "No, sir. As I have already told you, I have no secrets from my wife, and whatever you wish to say to me must be said while she is present."