"Can you tell me who and where this Bycliffe is?"
"I can."
"——-And give me a notion of the whole affair?"
"Yes; I have talked to a lawyer—not Jermyn—who is at the bottom of the law in the affair."
"You must not count on any wish of mine to suppress evidence or remove a witness. But name your price for the information."
"In that case I must be paid the higher for my information. Say, two thousand pounds."
"Two thousand devils!" burst out Harold, throwing himself into his chair again, and turning his shoulder toward Christian. New thoughts crowded upon him. "This fellow may want to decamp for some reason or other," he said to himself. "More people besides Jermyn know about his evidence, it seems. The whole thing may look black for me if it comes out. I shall be believed to have bribed him to run away, whether or not." Thus the outside conscience came in aid of the inner.
"I will not give you one sixpence for your information," he said, resolutely, "until time has made it clear that you do not intend to decamp, but will be forthcoming when you are called for. On those terms I have no objection to give you a note, specifying that after the fulfilment of that condition—that is, after the occurrence of a suit, or the understanding that no suit is to occur—I will pay you a certain sum in consideration of the information you now give me!"
Christian felt himself caught in a vise. In the first instance he had counted confidently on Harold's ready seizure of his offer to disappear, and after some words had seemed to cast a doubt on this presupposition he had inwardly determined to go away, whether Harold wished it or not, if he could get a sufficient sum. He did not reply immediately, and Harold waited in silence, inwardly anxious to know what Christian could tell, but with a vision at present so far cleared that he was determined not to risk incurring the imputation of having anything to do with scoundrelism. We are very much indebted to such a linking of events as makes a doubtful action look wrong.
Christian was reflecting that if he stayed and faced some possible inconveniences of being known publicly as Henry Scaddon for the sake of what he might get from Esther, it would at least be wise to be certain of some money from Harold Transome, since he turned out to be of so peculiar a disposition as to insist on a punctilious honesty to his own disadvantage. Did he think of making a bargain with the other side? If so, he might be content to wait for the knowledge till it came in some other way. Christian was beginning to be afraid lest he should get nothing by this clever move of coming to Transome Court. At last he said—