“You knew, didn’t you, that there had been a man hanging about the place, trying to get information from the servants? Margaret first heard of this last Tuesday....” Gabriel missed the next sentence. That the fellow should speak of her as “Margaret” made him see red. When his vision cleared Peter was still talking. There had been some allusion to or description of cook’s weakness, and the discursiveness was a fresh offence. “What she told him in her amorous moments we have no means of knowing, but that it included the information that you had stayed in the house there is not much reason to doubt. And down came this woman like a ton of bricks on Wednesday morning and flung a bomb on us in the shape of a demand for a thousand pounds.” “What woman?” “The man’s employer. She had set him on to it.” “Who?” “This blackmailing person.” The “us” tightened Gabriel’s thin lips and hardened his deep-set eyes. Had they been alone he might have remembered what Margaret must have suffered, what a dreadful thing this visit must have been to her. As it was, and for the moment, he thought of nothing but of Peter Kennedy’s intervention, interference. “Why did you see her?” he asked Margaret. “I thought she came from Anne,” she faltered. “From Anne!” “She is the Christian Science woman,” Peter explained. And now indeed the full force of the blow struck him. “Mrs. Roope?” he got out. “No other,” Peter answered. “Crammed choke-full of extracts from Mrs. Eddy. James Capel is her husband’s cousin. At least so she says. And that he never wanted to be divorced from his wife, and would welcome a chance of stopping the decree from being made absolute. She said the higher morality bade her go to him. ‘Husband and wife should never separate if there is no Christian demand for it,’ she quoted. But help toward the Christian Science Church, or movement, she would construe as ‘a Christian demand.’ She asked for a thousand pounds! Mrs. Capel,” this time for some unknown reason he said “Mrs. Capel” and Gabriel heard better, “was quite overwhelmed, knocked to pieces by her impudence. That’s when I came on the scene. I told the woman what I thought of her; you may bet I didn’t mince matters. And then I offered her a hundred....” Gabriel got up suddenly, abruptly, his face flushed. “You ... you offered her a hundred pounds?” “Well! there was not a bit of good trying for less. It was a round sum.” “You allowed Mrs. Capel to be blackmailed!” “What would you have done? Of course I did.” “It was disgraceful, indefensible.” “Gabriel.” She called him by his name, she wanted him to sit down by her, but he remained standing. “There was no time to send for any one, ask for advice....” “It was a case of ‘your money or your life.’ The woman put a pistol to our heads. ‘Pay up or I’ll take my tale to James Capel’ was the beginning and end of what she said. I got her down finally to £250.” “You gave the woman, this infamous, blackmailing person, £250?”