an attempt to bully.

"Why are you here?" said Maud, standing bolt upright; while Gentleman
Jim, with an awkward bow, began as usual to unroll his goods. "I have
told you often enough this persecution must finish. I am determined
not to endure it any longer. The next time you call I shall order my
servants to drive you from the door. O, will you--_will_ you not come
to terms?"

His face had been growing darker and darker while she spoke, and she
watched its expression as the Mediterranean fisherman watches a white
squall gliding with fatal swiftness over the waters, to bring ruin and
shipwreck and despair. It sometimes happens that the fisherman loses
his head precisely at the wrong moment, so that foiled, helpless,
and taken aback, he comes to fatal and irremediable grief. Thus Lady
Bearwarden, too, found the nerve on which she prided herself failing
when she most wanted it, and knew that the prestige and influence
which formed her only safeguards were slipping from her grasp.

She had cowed this ruffian at their first meeting by an assumption
of calm courage and superiority in a crisis when most women, thus
confronted at dead of night by a housebreaker, would have shrunk
trembling and helpless before him. She had retained her superiority
during their subsequent association by an utter indifference as to
results, so long as they only affected character and fortune, which
to his lower nature seemed simply incomprehensible; but now that her
heart was touched she could no longer remain thus reckless, thus
defiant. With womanly feelings came womanly misgivings and fear of
consequences. The charm was lost, the spell broken, and the familiar
spirit had grown to an exacting master from an obedient slave.

"That's not the way as them speaks who's had the pith and marrow out
of a chap's werry bones," growled Jim. "There wasn't no talkin of
figure-footmen and drivin' of respectable tradesmen from folks' doors
when a _man_ was wanted, like this here. A _man_, I says, wot wasn't
afeard to swing, if so be as he could act honourable and fulfil his
bargain."

"I'll pay anything. Hush! _pray_. Don't speak so loud. What _must_ my
servants think? Consider the frightful risks I run. Why should you
wish to make me utterly miserable--to drive me out of my senses? I'll
pay anything--anything to be free from this intolerable persecution."

"Pay--pay anythink!" repeated Jim, slightly mollified by her distress,
but still in a tone of de