"Yes. I thought of offering to tell you the whole truth if you would consent to make provision for my wife and child. She is an uneducated woman, and the boy is a cripple. They are two helpless creatures, and they are absolutely innocent; they do not even know my real name. They believe I am----" "James Russell!" "Yes! You know that! That is what I thought, else you would not have been in St. Paul. Will you consent to make some provision for them, if I declare everything without concealment or reserve? I do not know how much you do know?" he added inquiringly. "I know a good deal, but not all. I know you did not lose the money on the Stock Exchange, as you told my father, but that you--appropriated it to your own use, and still have it, I imagine. Is it not so?" "Yes. That money shall be restored to you in trust for your father and the firm, if you will accede to my suggestion about my wife and child. What more do you know?" "I know you led a double life, and that you entered into a conspiracy with Ucelli, the Syndic of Camajore. But I do not know what passed between you and Morris Thornton the night he died." "I will tell you the whole story," said Silwood, "if you will agree to see my wife and child suitably provided for." "And if I refuse?" "Refuse! You will not refuse. Consider! In forty-eight or fifty hours I shall be dead. Nothing can alter that. I shall be where the hand of the law cannot touch me. What can you do against a dead man? Personal vengeance on me is impossible. On the other hand, if you will do what I wish, then I will tell you where the money is, so that you will have no difficulty in obtaining it. You have much to gain and nothing to lose by falling in with my desire." "But I shall be able to get at the money in any case." "No, that you never shall unless you get my help." Gilbert thought for a while. The coolness of Silwood's proposition startled him; yet there was much to recommend it. "Let me consider for a few moments what you have said," he remarked to Silwood; "and I will tell you my decision." CHAPTER XXXVII Beckoning to Hankey, the detective, to follow him, Gilbert went from the hospital tent into the open air to consider quietly what he should do. He was not sorry to get out of the atmosphere of the tent, which reeked with iodoform; where also the sight of so many poor stricken and agonized wretches harrowed his feelings. Just outside the tent, he encountered the doctor who had conducted him to the bedside of Cooper Silwood, _alias_ James Russell. "Did you find him quite sensible, as I said?" asked the doctor. "Extraordinarily so," replied Gilbert, "His mind is perfectly clear, even his voice shows no weakness. One would scarcely think he is dying."