his feet, and looked his son steadily in the face.

"If I could have my own way," he said, "I would marry her now."

Bashwood the younger started back a step. "After all I have told you?"
he asked, in the blankest astonishment.

"After all you have told me."

"With the chance of being poisoned, the first time you happened to
offend her?"

"With the chance of being poisoned," answered Mr. Bashwood, "in
four-and-twenty hours."

The Spy of the Private Inquiry Office dropped back into his chair, cowed
by his father's words and his father's looks.

"Mad!" he said to himself. "Stark mad, by jingo!"

Mr. Bashwood looked at his watch, and hurriedly took his hat from a
side-table.

"I should like to hear the rest of it," he said. "I should like to hear
every word you have to tell me about her, to the very last. But the
time, the dreadful, galloping time, is getting on. For all I know, they
may be on their way to be married at this very moment."

"What are you going to do?" asked Bashwood the younger, getting between
his father and the door.

"I am going to the hotel," said the old man, trying to pass him. "I am
going to see Mr. Armadale."

"What for?"

"To tell him everything you have told me." He paused after making that
reply. The terrible smile of triumph which had once already appeared on
his face overspread it again. "Mr. Armadale is young; Mr. Armadale has
all his life before him," he whispered, cunningly, with his trembling
fingers clutching his son's arm. "What doesn't frighten _me_ will
frighten _him_!"

"Wait a minute," said Bashwood the younger. "Are you as certain as ever
that Mr. Armadale is the man?"

"What man?"

"The man who is going to marry her."

"Yes! yes! yes! Let me go, Jemmy--let me go."

The spy set his back against the door, and considered for a moment. Mr.
Armadale was rich--Mr. Armadale (if _he_ was not stark mad too) might be
made to put the right money-value on information that saved him from
the disgrace of marrying Miss Gwilt. "It may be a hundred pounds in my
pocket if I work it myself," thought Bashwood the younger. "And it won't
be a half-penny if I leave it to my father." He took up his hat and his
leather bag. "Can you carry it all in your own addled old head, daddy?"
he asked, with his easiest impudence of manner. "Not you! I'll go with
you and help you. What do you think of that?"

The father threw his arms in an ecstasy round the son's neck. "I can't
help it, Jemm