Slyme looked at him; gave it into his hands; and shook his head.
‘I can’t. I daren’t. I couldn’t if I dared. Those fellows below—’
‘Escape’s impossible,’ said Jonas. ‘I know it. One hundred pound for only five minutes in the next room!’
‘What to do?’ he asked.
The face of his prisoner as he advanced to whisper in his ear, made him recoil involuntarily. But he stopped and listened to him. The words were few, but his own face changed as he heard them.
‘I have it about me,’ said Jonas, putting his hands to his throat, as though whatever he referred to were hidden in his neckerchief. ‘How should you know of it? How could you know? A hundred pound for only five minutes in the next room! The time’s passing. Speak!’
‘It would be more—more creditable to the family,’ observed Slyme, with trembling lips. ‘I wish you hadn’t told me half so much. Less would have served your purpose. You might have kept it to yourself.’
‘A hundred pound for only five minutes in the next room! Speak!’ cried Jonas, desperately.
He took the purse. Jonas, with a wild unsteady step, retreated to the door in the glass partition.
‘Stop!’ cried Slyme, catching at his skirts. ‘I don’t know about this. Yet it must end so at last. Are you guilty?’