emote objects. At the distance of a dozen paces walked Bob Hewett; the
two had had a difference in their conversation, and for some minutes
kept thus apart, looking sullenly at the ground. Clem turned aside, and
leaned her arms on the parapet. Presently her companion drew near and
leaned in the same manner.

'What is it you want me to do?' he asked huskily. 'Just speak plain,
can't you?'

'If you can't understand--if you _won't_, that is--it's no good
speakin' plainer.'

'You said the other night as you didn't care about his money. If you
think he means hookin' it, let him go, and good riddance.'

'That's a fool's way of talkin'. I'm not goin' to lose it all, if I can
help it. There's a way of stoppin' him, and of gettin' the money too.'

They both stared down at the water; it was full tide, and the muddy
surface looked almost solid.

'You wouldn't get it all,' were Bob's next words. 'I've been asking
about that.'

'You have? Who did you ask?'

'Oh, a feller you don't know. You'd only have a third part of it, and
the girl 'ud get the rest.'

'What do you call a third part?'

So complete was her stupidity, that Bob had to make a laborious
explanation of this mathematical term, She could have understood what
was meant by a half or a quarter, but the unfamiliar 'third' conveyed
no distinct meaning.

'I don't care,' she said at length. 'That 'ud be enough.'

'Clem--you'd better leave this job alone. You'd better, I warn you.'

'I shan't,'

Another long silence. A steamboat drew up to the Temple Pier, and a
yellow shaft of sunlight fell softly upon its track in the water.

'What do you want me to do?' Bob recommenced. '_How_?'

Their eyes met, and in the woman's gaze he found a horrible
fascination, a devilish allurement to that which his soul shrank from.
She lowered her voice.

'There's lots of ways. It 'ud be easy to make it seem as somebody did
it just to rob him. He's always out late at night.'

His face was much the colour of the muddy water yellowed by that shaft
of sunlight. His lips quivered. 'I dursn't, Clem. I tell you plain, I
dursn't.'

'Coward!' she snarled at him, savagely. 'Coward! All right, Mr. Bob.
You go your way, and I'll go mine.'

'Listen here, Clem,' he gasped out, laying his hand on her arm. 'I'll
think about it. I won't say no. Give me a day to think about it.'

'Oh, we know what your thinkin' means.'

They talked for some time longer, and before they parted Bob had give