"Trust me for that."

"I trust you for making up something or other, but--oh, Joe, you little think, you clever people, how seldom you succeed in deceiving any one."

"I"ve got such a story for you, Lotty, as would deceive anybody.

Listen now. It"s part truth, and part--the other thing. Your father--"

"My father, poor dear man," Lotty interrupted, "is minding his music-shop in Gloucester, and little thinking what wickedness his daughter is being asked to do."

"Hang it! the girl"s father, then. He died in America, where he went under another name, and you were picked up by strangers and reared under that name, in complete ignorance of your own family. All which is true and can be proved."

"Who brought her up?"

"People in America. I"m one of "em."

"Who is to prove that?"

"I am. I am come to England on purpose. I am her guardian."

"Who is to prove that you are the girl"s guardian?"

"I shall find somebody to prove that."

His thoughts turned to Mr. Chalker, a gentleman whom he judged capable of proving anything he was paid for.

"And suppose they ask me questions?"

"Don"t answer "em. You know very little. The papers were only found the other day. You are not expected to know anything."

"Where was the real girl?"

"With her grandfather."

"Where was the grandfather?"

"What does that matter?" he replied; "I will tell you afterward."

"When did the real girl die?"

"That, too, I will tell you afterward."

Lotty leaned her cheek upon her hand, and looked at her husband thoughtfully.

"Let us be plain, Joe."

"You can never be plain, my dear," he replied with the smile of a lover, not a husband; "never in your husband"s eyes; not even in tights."

But she was not to be won by flattery.

"Fine words," she said, "fine words. What do they amount to? Oh, Joe, little I thought when you came along with your beautiful promises, what sort of a man I was going to marry."

"A very good sort of a man," he said. "You"ve got a jolly sailor--an officer and a gentleman. Come now, what have you got to say to this?

Can"t you be satisfied with an officer and a gentleman?"

He drew himself up to his full height. Well, he was a handsome fellow: there was no denying it.

"Good looks and fine words," his wife went on. "Well, and now I"ve got to keep you, and if you could make me sing in a dozen halls every night, you would, and spend the money on yourself--joyfully you would."

"We would spend it together, my dear. Don"t turn rusty, Lotty."

He was not a bad-tempered man, and this kind of talk did not anger him at all. So long as his wife worked hard and brought in the coin for him to spend, what mattered for a few words now and then? Besides, he wanted her a.s.sistance.

"What are you driving at?" he went on. "I show you a bit of my hand, and you begin talking round and round. Look here, Lotty. Here"s a splendid chance for us. I must have a woman"s help. I would rather have your help than any other woman"s--yes, than any other woman"s in the world. I would indeed. If you won"t help me, why, then, of course, I must go to some other woman."

His wife gasped and choked. She knew already, after only five weeks"

experience, how bad a man he was--how unscrupulous, false, and treacherous, how lazy and selfish. But, after a fashion, she loved him; after a woman"s fashion, she was madly jealous of him. Another woman! And only the other night she had seen him giving brandy-and-soda to one of the music-hall ballet-girls. Another woman!

"If you do, Joe," she said; "oh, if you do--I will kill her and you too!"

He laughed.

"If I do, my dear, you don"t think I shall be such a fool as to tell you who she is. Do you suppose that no woman has ever fallen in love with me before you? But then, my pretty, you see I don"t talk about them; and do you suppose--oh, Lotty, are you such a fool as to suppose that you are the first girl I ever fell in love with?"

"What do you want me to do? Tell me again."

"I have told you already. I want you to become, for the time, the daughter of the man who died in America; you will claim your inheritance; I will provide you with all the papers; I will stand by you; I will back you up with such a story as will disarm all suspicion. That is all."

"Yes. I understand. Haven"t people been sent to prison for less, Joe?"

"Foolish people have. Not people who are well advised and under good management. Mind you, this business is under my direction. I am boss."

She made no reply, but took her candle and went off to bed.

In the dead of night she awakened her husband.

"Joe," she said, "is it true that you know another girl who would do this for you?"

"More than one, Lotty," he replied, this man of resource, although he was only half awake. "More than one. A great many more. Half-a-dozen, I know, at least."

She was silent. Half an hour afterward she woke him up again.

"Joe," she said, "I"ve made up my mind. You sha"n"t say that I refused to do for you what any other girl in the world would have done."

As a tempter it will be seen that Joe was unsurpa.s.sed.

It was now a week since he had received, carefully wrapped in wool, and deposited in a wooden box dispatched by post, a key, newly made.

It was, also, very nearly a week since he had used that key. It was used during Mr. Emblem"s hour for tea, while James waited and watched outside in an agony of terror. But Joe did not find what he wanted.

There were in the safe one or two ledgers, a banker"s book, a check-book, and a small quant.i.ty of money. But there were not any records at all of monies invested. There were no railway certificates, waterwork shares, transfers, or notes of stock, mortgages, loans, or anything at all. The only thing that he saw was a roll of papers tied up with red tape. On the roll was written: "For Iris. To be given to her on her twenty-first birthday."

"What the deuce is this, I wonder?" Joe took this out and looked at it suspiciously. "Can he be going to give her all his money before he dies? Is he going to make her inherit it at once?" The thought was so exasperating that he slipped the roll into his pocket. "At all events," he said, "she sha"n"t have them until I have read them first.