'My wife! always my wife!' cried Forestfield, choking with rage. 'Is she to be brought up and thrown in my teeth at every trick and turn? Am I never to hear the last of her?' 'Never,' said Uffington quietly. 'You imagined that, when driven to despair by your cruelty and neglect, she fell into the trap, and gave you the opportunity you had so long sought for, you had got rid of her for ever, and were free to follow your own devices. It is partly to show you how mistaken you were in such an idea that I am here to-day.' 'Don't you think you had better sink all this fine tirade of virtuous indignation, Sir Nugent Uffington?' said Forestfield, with a gleam of his old insolence returning to his face. 'Let us stick to business, please--you are neither my confessor nor my executioner, so far as I know, but merely a gentleman whose hermit-like austerity has not prevented his winning my money at cards--that's what we have to discuss; and, as the lawyers say, we will, if you please, not travel out of the record.' 'I am perfectly willing to confine our discussion to that point,' said Uffington. 'You owe me 10,000_l_., Lord Forestfield, and you have at once to pay me that amount, or give me an equivalent.' 'An equivalent!' cried Forestfield; 'you mean a mortgage, or something of that sort? Well, then, it is best to say frankly at once that I can do neither. My account at my banker's is overdrawn, and my estate at Woodburn is mortgaged to the value of every acre. The infernal thief who holds it talks about foreclosing; but I am in communication with my lawyers just now, and I am in hopes of getting it held over.' 'I should advise you not to lean on any such rotten reed,' said Uffington. 'The gentleman who held the mortgage, and whom you are pleased to style an infernal thief, was a Mr. Richards, I believe?' 'That is his name,' said Forestfield; 'how on earth did you know it?' 'Simply from having had a few business transactions with him myself,' said Uffington. 'The fact is, Lord Forestfield, that Mr. Richards has transferred his interest in the Woodburn mortgage to me, and, so far as that is concerned, you are entirely in my power.' Lord Forestfield's jaw fell and his face became deadly pale. 'This is a devilish deep conspiracy you have been hatching for my ruin, Sir Nugent Uffington,' he said; 'a nice gentlemanly scheme to bring me on my knees for some purpose of your own. What is it all about? What do you want?' 'What I intend to have,' said Uffington; 'your money, or the equivalent. You owe me 10,000_l_., and if you don't pay it I will post you in every club in London. I hold the mortgage on the Woodburn estate, and can at any moment telegraph to my lawyers to foreclose, and thus deprive you of your patrimony. You see, there is no chance of escape, and that you are completely ruined--unless, indeed, you choose to accept the equivalent.'