him without speaking, he broke out, with a quick return upon
himself: "You see how simple it is, don't you? Well, don't be carried
away by the idea that it's TOO simple. It isn't exactly as if you'd
started in with a clean bill of health. Now we're talking let's call
things by their right names, and clear the whole business up. You know
well enough that Bertha Dorset couldn't have touched you if there hadn't
been--well--questions asked before--little points of interrogation, eh?
Bound to happen to a good-looking girl with stingy relatives, I suppose;
anyhow, they DID happen, and she found the ground prepared for her. Do
you see where I'm coming out? You don't want these little questions
cropping up again. It's one thing to get Bertha Dorset into line--but
what you want is to keep her there. You can frighten her fast enough--but
how are you going to keep her frightened? By showing her that you're as
powerful as she is. All the letters in the world won't do that for you as
you are now; but with a big backing behind you, you'll keep her just
where you want her to be. That's MY share in the business--that's what
I'm offering you. You can't put the thing through without me--don't run
away with any idea that you can. In six months you'd be back again among
your old worries, or worse ones; and here I am, ready to lift you out of
'em tomorrow if you say so. DO you say so, Miss Lily?" he added, moving
suddenly nearer.

The words, and the movement which accompanied them, combined to startle
Lily out of the state of tranced subservience into which she had
insensibly slipped. Light comes in devious ways to the groping
consciousness, and it came to her now through the disgusted perception
that her would-be accomplice assumed, as a matter of course, the
likelihood of her distrusting him and perhaps trying to cheat him of his
share of the spoils. This glimpse of his inner mind seemed to present the
whole transaction in a new aspect, and she saw that the essential
baseness of the act lay in its freedom from risk.

She drew back with a quick gesture of rejection, saying, in a voice that
was a surprise to her own ears: "You are mistaken--quite mistaken--both
in the facts and in what you infer from them."

Rosedale stared a moment, puzzled by her sudden dash in a direction so
different from that toward which she had appeared to be letting him guide
her.

"Now what on earth does that mean? I thought we understood each other!"
he ex