ir! And do I wish to
be the man who does it? Yes, sir! yes, sir!! yes, sir!!!"

"It's rather strange," remarked the lawyer, looking at him more and more
distrustfully, "that you should be so violently agitated, simply because
my question happens to have hit the mark."

The question happened to have hit a mark which Pedgift little dreamed
of. It had released Mr. Bashwood's mind in an instant from the dead
pressure of his one dominant idea of revenge, and had shown him a
purpose to be achieved by the discovery of Miss Gwilt's secrets which
had never occurred to him till that moment. The marriage which he had
blindly regarded as inevitable was a marriage that might be stopped--not
in Allan's interests, but in his own--and the woman whom he believed
that he had lost might yet, in spite of circumstances, be a woman won!
His brain whirled as he thought of it. His own roused resolution almost
daunted him, by its terrible incongruity with all the familiar habits of
his mind, and all the customary proceedings of his life.

Finding his last remark unanswered, Pedgift Senior considered a little
before he said anything more.

"One thing is clear," reasoned the lawyer with himself. "His true motive
in this matter is a motive which he is afraid to avow. My question
evidently offered him a chance of misleading me, and he has accepted it
on the spot. That's enough for _me_. If I was Mr. Armadale's lawyer, the
mystery might be worth investigating. As things are, it's no interest
of mine to hunt Mr. Bashwood from one lie to another till I run him to
earth at last. I have nothing whatever to do with it; and I shall leave
him free to follow his own roundabout courses, in his own roundabout
way." Having arrived at that conclusion, Pedgift Senior pushed back his
chair, and rose briskly to terminate the interview.

"Don't be alarmed, Bashwood," he began. "The subject of our conversation
is a subject exhausted, so far as I am concerned. I have only a few
last words to say, and it's a habit of mine, as you know, to say my last
words on my legs. Whatever else I may be in the dark about, I have made
one discovery, at any rate. I have found out what you really want with
me--at last! You want me to help you."

"If you would be so very, very kind, sir!" stammered Mr. Bashwood. "If
you would only give me the great advantage of your opinion and advice."

"Wait a bit, Bashwood. We will separate those two things, if you please.
A lawyer may offer