"My dear mistress, I care nothing about the girl, or about any woman in the world, except one. Who should know this except the one herself? It is the girl's fortune that I want—not the girl herself."
"How will you get it without the girl?"
"That is the very point I am considering. I came here in order to get this fortune. My secretary—the fellow Semple—told me of the girl. I sent you here in order to help me to secure this fortune. I sent his reverence here—the colonel—Sir Harry—all of them—here with the same object, which they must not know. I came here. I have made a friend of the girl's guardian."
"If this is true——"
"Of course, it is true," he replied coldly. "Let me go on. You shall not charge me again with want of confidence. The guardian is a simple old sailor. He is a fool, of course, being a sailor. He thinks to marry his ward to a man of rank."
"Yourself, perhaps?"
"Perhaps. He also believes in the virtue and piety which my friends here have ascribed to me."
"How will you get the fortune without the girl?"
"I tell you again—there is the difficulty. Anastasia, if you have ever promised to assist me, give me your assistance now. I must win the confidence of the old man and the girl. Everybody must speak well of me. I will learn how the money is placed and where. I will get possession of it somehow."
"And then—when you have it?"