"No, no," he said. "You can come with me to the private boarding-house where I have engaged a bed, and can write me a cheque there. A man of means always carries his cheque-book with him. Unless you prefer to invite me to dinner at your lovers' nest."
"I will come with you," I said.
On our way he reproached me for not asking after Barbara, and I replied that I received all the news I wished to hear through my solicitor. He entertained me, however, with a long account of her, which I knew to be false, and to which I listened in silence. She was much better, he said, and was looking forward to the end of our differences. She had become a convert to the Catholic Church, and was held in the highest esteem by the priests and nuns; the children in the schools doated on her; she deprived herself to provide them with clothes and food; she prayed for me day and night, etcetera, etcetera. And all the time he regaled me with this tissue of falsehoods he was laughing at me in his sleeve. The truth about her was that her excesses had become even more frightful than in my experiences of her; she had not a sober hour, and was continually turned out of her lodgings. Maxwell was curious to ascertain how much of the truth I knew, but I did not satisfy him. At the boarding-house I wrote a cheque for fifty pounds, and made an appointment to meet him that day week, when we were to "come to terms."
I said nothing to Ellen of this meeting or of the misery into which I was plunged. To have made her a sharer in my unhappiness would serve me no good purpose. On the appointed day Maxwell and I met again, and then he named a sum so large that I hesitated. It amounted, indeed, to a third of what remained of my fortune.
"You refuse?" he said.
"I must," I replied. "I will not submit to be beggared by you."
"Sheer nonsense, John. I have made a calculation, and I know, within a hundred or two, how much you are worth. Cast your eyes over these figures."
To my surprise I discovered that his calculation was as nearly as possible correct, and that by some means he was fairly well acquainted with my pecuniary position.
"It is for you to decide," he said. "I have something to sell which you are anxious to purchase. You can make either a friend or an enemy of me, and you know whether it will be worth your while to buy. I don't deny that I am hard up, and that in a certain sense you represent my last chance. I am not fool enough to throw it away. Understand clearly—I intend to make the best of it. You see, John, I hold the reins, and I can tool you comfortably down a safe and pleasant road, or I can send you headlong to the devil—and in your company Madame Virtue. I have learned something since last week. You are living here under an assumed name, and I have a suspicion that Madame Virtue is not aware of it. Another trump card in my hand. It rests with me whether I bring about an introduction between Barbara and Madame Virtue, and whether I bring your excellent stepmother and Louis down upon you. There's no escape for you, brother-in-law. Best make a friend of me, my boy, and keep the game to ourselves."
In the end I consented, with some modification, to his terms, upon his promise that he would never molest me again; and so we parted.