“Well?” said Phoebe, not much interested so far—“and what then?”
Jervy looked about him. They were in a crowded thoroughfare at the time. He preserved a discreet silence, until they had arrived at the first turning which led down a quiet street.
“What I have to tell you,” he said, “must not be accidentally heard by anybody. Here, my dear, we are all but out of the world—and here I can speak to you safely. I promise you two good things. You shall bring Mrs. Farnaby to that day of reckoning; and we will find money enough to marry on comfortably as soon as you like.”
Phoebe’s languid interest in the subject began to revive: she insisted on having a clearer explanation than this. “Do you mean to get the money out of Mr. Farnaby?” she inquired.
“I will have nothing to do with Mr. Farnaby—unless I find that his wife’s money is not at her own disposal. What you heard in the kitchen has altered all my plans. Wait a minute—and you will see what I am driving at. How much do you think Mrs. Farnaby would give me, if I found that lost daughter of hers?”
Phoebe suddenly stood still, and looked at the sordid scoundrel who was tempting her in blank amazement.
“But nobody knows where the daughter is,” she objected.
“You and I know that the daughter has a deformity in her left foot,” Jervy replied; “and you and I know exactly in what part of the foot it is. There’s not only money to be made out of that knowledge—but money made easily, without the slightest risk. Suppose I managed the matter by correspondence, without appearing in it personally? Don’t you think Mrs. Farnaby would open her purse beforehand, if I mentioned the exact position of that little deformity, as a proof that I was to be depended on?”
Phoebe was unable, or unwilling, to draw the obvious conclusion, even now.
“But, what would you do,” she said, “when Mrs. Farnaby insisted on seeing her daughter?”