Arrived at Austin Friars, Mr. Simnel bade his companion wait in the outer office, while he himself was shown into the sanctum. He found Mr. Townshend somewhat aged and broken, but invested with all such relics of his former haughtiness as he could command. He received his visitor with studied cold politeness, pointed him to a chair, and waited for him to speak.
"I was sorry," began Simnel, "to be compelled to ask you to return home; but the fact is that the business was urgent, and I had no alternative. You comprehend?"
"I comprehend, sir," answered Mr. Townshend, "that the last time I saw you you proved yourself possessed of a secret, on the keeping of which depends my--almost my life! The possession of this secret enables you to dictate terms to me at your own convenience. Your convenience is now. You ordered me to come here to hear your terms, and I am here. Isn't that so?"
"You put matters a little harshly, Mr. Townshend; as, when you have heard what you are pleased to call my terms, I think you will allow. I do not come merely to dictate terms to you, as I at one time thought I should. There are wheels within wheels in my scheme; and I must take off the front, and show you the whole scheme at work before you will be able to see the mechanism of it. The last time I had the pleasure of talking with you, you asked me what I wanted; I told you nothing. Since then I have made up my mind. I want justice!"
"Justice!" echoed the old man, turning deadly white; "justice!"
"Justice!" said Simnel; "not on any one though, merely for somebody. Pardon my again asking about that door. Nobody to listen, eh? All right! Last time I was here I had a notion in my head, which has since resolved itself into a certainty, and into the pivot on which all my action turns. I must bore you with old memories once more, I'm afraid. You recollect that, while you were at Combcardingham with our old friends Piggott and Wells, you formed an acquaintance with a very pretty girl--a 'hand' in one of the factories? You shake your head, eh? it is a long time since, and these sort of things get pushed from one's mind by other affairs, and--however, I think you'll recollect her when I mention her name. Does the name Ann Moore convey to you--Ah! I thought so! I'll wait a minute, if you please; there's no hurry."
"Go on, sir; go on!" said Mr. Townshend, whose face was hidden in, and supported by, his hands.
"An attachment sprung up between you and Ann Moore, I think, which was the cause of great distress to her only relation, a brother, with whom she lived. This brother and you exchanged words--if not blows--on this subject, and the result was that the girl left her brother and went to live with you. Did you speak?"
If he had spoken, he did not repeat what he had said, but sat there still and silent.
"She had been living with you for about a year when that unfortunate affair of the acceptance happened. You were obliged to leave Combcardingham; but you were not obliged, so far as I can make out, to leave it as you did--without giving her the least notion of your intention; without leaving her one shilling to support herself or your little child! She could not go back to the factory; she had not been there since the child's birth; and she was weak and ill, and unable to do the work. So she and the child starved."