At noon of the next day Clem was walking on that part of the Thames Embankment which is between Waterloo Bridge and the Temple Pier. It was a mild morning, misty, but illuminated now and then with rays of sunlight, which gleamed dully upon the river and gave a yellowness to remote objects. At the distance of a dozen paces walked Bob Hewett; the two had had a difference in their conversation, and for some minutes kept thus apart, looking sullenly at the ground. Clem turned aside, and leaned her arms on the parapet. Presently her companion drew near and leaned in the same manner. ‘What is it you want me to do?’ he asked huskily. ‘Just speak plain, can’t you?’ ‘If you can’t understand—if you _won’t_, that is—it’s no good speakin’ plainer.’ ‘You said the other night as you didn’t care about his money. If you think he means hookin’ it, let him go, and good riddance.’ ‘That’s a fool’s way of talkin’. I’m not goin’ to lose it all, if I can help it. There’s a way of stoppin’ him, and of gettin’ the money too.’ They both stared down at the water; it was full tide, and the muddy surface looked almost solid. ‘You wouldn’t get it all,’ were Bob’s next words. ‘I’ve been asking about that.’ ‘You have? Who did you ask?’ ‘Oh, a feller you don’t know. You’d only have a third part of it, and the girl ‘ud get the rest.’ ‘What do you call a third part?’ So complete was her stupidity, that Bob had to make a laborious explanation of this mathematical term. She could have understood what was meant by a half or a quarter, but the unfamiliar ‘third’ conveyed no distinct meaning. ‘I don’t care,’ she said at length. ‘That ‘ud be enough.’ ‘Clem—you’d better leave this job alone. You’d better, I warn you.’ ‘I shan’t,’ Another long silence. A steamboat drew up to the Temple Pier, and a yellow shaft of sunlight fell softly upon its track in the water. ‘What do you want me to do?’ Bob recommenced. ‘_How_?’ Their eyes met, and in the woman’s gaze he found a horrible fascination, a devilish allurement to that which his soul shrank from. She lowered her voice. ‘There’s lots of ways. It ‘ud be easy to make it seem as somebody did it just to rob him. He’s always out late at night.’ His face was much the colour of the muddy water yellowed by that shaft of sunlight. His lips quivered. ‘I dursn’t, Clem. I tell you plain, I dursn’t.’ ‘Coward!’ she snarled at him, savagely. ‘Coward! All right, Mr. Bob. You go your way, and I’ll go mine.’ ‘Listen here, Clem,’ he gasped out, laying his hand on her arm. ‘I’ll think about it. I won’t say no. Give me a day to think about it.’ ‘Oh, we know what your thinkin’ means.’ They talked for some time longer, and before they parted Bob had given a promise to do more than think.