"I'll come at once," said Hope; "the men's lives must not be endangered. Have the cage ready." Jim walked away.
"Pray understand, Mr. Bartley, that this is my last visit to your mine."
"One moment, Hope," cried Bartley in despair; "we have been friends so long, surely you owe me something."
"Well, then, I'll make you rich for life if you will but let Mary return to me and only just be silent; speak neither for me nor against me; surely that is not much for an old friend to ask. What is your answer?"
"That I will speak the truth, and keep my conscience and my child."
This answer literally crushed Bartley. His very knees knocked together; he leaned against the palings sick at heart. He saw that Colonel Clifford would extort not only Walter's legacy, but what the lawyers call the mesne profits, that is to say, the interest and the various proceeds from the fraud during fourteen years.
Whilst he was in this condition of bodily collapse and mental horror a cold, cynical voice dropped icicles, so to speak, into his ear.
"In a fix, governor, eh? The girl won't come back, and Hope won't hold his tongue."
Bartley looked round in amazement, and saw the cadaverous face and diabolical sneer of Leonard Monckton. Fourteen years and evil passions had furrowed that bloodless cheek; but there was no mistaking the man. It was a surprise to Bartley to see him there and be spoken to by a knave who had tried to rob him; but he was too full of his immediate trouble to think much of minor things.
"What do you know about it?" said he, roughly.
He then walked in a most leisurely way to the gate that led into the meadow whose eastern boundary was Hope's quick-set hedge, and he came in the same leisurely way up to Mr. Bartley, and leaned his back, with his hands behind him, with perfect effrontery, against the palings.
"I know all," said he. "I overheard you in your office fourteen years ago, when you changed children with Hope."
Bartley uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"And I've been hovering about here all day, and watched the little game, and now I am fly, and no mistake."
Bartley threw up his hands in dismay. "Then it's all over; I am doubly ruined. I can not hope to silence you both."
"Why not?" said Bartley, "others will, if I don't." He lowered his voice for all that, and wondered what was coming.