“Mrs. Roope?” he got out.
“No other,” Peter answered. “Crammed choke-full of extracts from Mrs. Eddy. James Capel is her husband’s cousin. At least so she says. And that he never wanted to be divorced from his wife, and would welcome a chance of stopping the decree from being made absolute. She said the higher morality bade her go to him. ‘Husband and wife should never separate if there is no Christian demand for it,’ she quoted. But help toward the Christian Science Church, or movement, she would construe as ‘a Christian demand.’ She asked for a thousand pounds! Mrs. Capel,” this time for some unknown reason he said “Mrs. Capel” and Gabriel heard better, “was quite overwhelmed, knocked to pieces by her impudence. That’s when I came on the scene. I told the woman what I thought of her; you may bet I didn’t mince matters. And then I offered her a hundred....”
Gabriel got up suddenly, abruptly, his face flushed.
“You ... you offered her a hundred pounds?”
“Well! there was not a bit of good trying for less. It was a round sum.”
“You allowed Mrs. Capel to be blackmailed!”
“What would you have done? Of course I did.”
“It was disgraceful, indefensible.”
“Gabriel.” She called him by his name, she wanted him to sit down by her, but he remained standing. “There was no time to send for any one, ask for advice....”
“It was a case of ‘your money or your life.’ The woman put a pistol to our heads. ‘Pay up or I’ll take my tale to James Capel’ was the beginning and end of what she said. I got her down finally to £250.”