The man stood at the open door. Ramage was right. He looked truly dreadful. Anxiety was proclaimed in his face, with eagerness and courage: he reminded me of a weasel, which for murderous resolution is said to surpass the whole of the animal creation. He came in blinking after the light and offered me his hand, but I refused it. 'Fie!' he said. 'Fie, Mr. Will! This is ill done. You confuse the attorney's zeal for his clients with an act of hostility to yourself. Put that out of your thoughts, I pray.' 'Why do you come here, Mr. Probus?' 'I said to myself: It is not easy to catch a man of Mr. William's reputation at home, his society being eagerly sought after. I will therefore visit him on Sunday. Not in the morning, when he will be lifting the hymn in Church: but in the afternoon. I came here straight from St. George's, Borough, where I sometimes repair for morning service. A holy discourse, Mr. William, moving and convincing.' His eyes kept shifting to and fro as he spoke. 'Very likely. But we will not talk about sermons. Look ye, Mr. Probus, your presence here is not desired. Say what you have to say, and begone.' 'Hot youth! Ah! I envy that fine heat of the blood. Once I was just the same myself.' He must have been a good deal changed, then, since that time. He went on. 'I will not stay long. I am once more a peacemaker. It is a happy office. It is an office that can be discharged on the Sabbath. Sweetly the river flows beneath your feet. Ah! A peacemaker. I come from your cousin again.' 'To make another offer?' 'Yes, that is my object. I am again prepared to offer you terms which, I believe, no one else in the world would propose to you. Mr. William, I will give you the sum of four thousand pounds down--equivalent to an annual income of two hundred pounds a year if you will sell your reversion.' 'No.' 'Mr. Matthew can use the money to advantage: while it lies locked up it is of no use to anyone.' 'No.' 'Such obstinacy was never known before, I believe. Why, Sir, I offer you an annual income of two hundred pounds a year--two hundred pounds a year. You can leave this wretched little cottage overhanging a marsh: you can move into a fashionable quarter, and live like a person of Quality: you can abandon your present mode of life, which I take to be repellent to every person of virtue--that of musician to the Dog and Duck or some other resort of the profligate. Oh, we know where you are and what you do! Instead of servant you will be master. You, Madam, will no longer be a household drudge: you will have your cook, your maids, your page to carry your Prayer-Book to church.' 'No.' He hesitated a little, the sham benevolence dying out of his face, and the angry look of baffled cunning taking its place. Mr. Probus was a bad actor. He took out a parchment. 'Sign it, Mr. William--here.' He unrolled it and indicated the place. 'Let us have no more shilly shally, willy nilly talk. It is for your good and for my client's.'