ch,
or how little.'

'What the Devil!' he asked savagely.'Not after a week's grace to
consider?'

'No! I will not out of my scanty means--for I tell you again, we are
poor here, and not rich--I will not offer any price for a power that I
do not know the worst and the fullest extent of. This is the third time
of your hinting and threatening. You must speak explicitly, or you may
go where you will, and do what you will. It is better to be torn to
pieces at a spring, than to be a mouse at the caprice of such a cat.'

He looked at her so hard with those eyes too near together that the
sinister sight of each, crossing that of the other, seemed to make the
bridge of his hooked nose crooked. After a long survey, he said, with
the further setting off of his internal smile:

'You are a bold woman!'

'I am a resolved woman.'

'You always were. What? She always was; is it not so, my little
Flintwinch?'

'Flintwinch, say nothing to him. It is for him to say, here and now,
all he can; or to go hence, and do all he can. You know this to be our
determination. Leave him to his action on it.'

She did not shrink under his evil leer, or avoid it. He turned it upon
her again, but she remained steady at the point to which she had fixed
herself. He got off the table, placed a chair near the sofa, sat down in
it, and leaned an arm upon the sofa close to her own, which he touched
with his hand. Her face was ever frowning, attentive, and settled.

'It is your pleasure then, madame, that I shall relate a morsel of
family history in this little family society,' said Rigaud, with a
warning play of his lithe fingers on her arm. 'I am something of a
doctor. Let me touch your pulse.'

She suffered him to take her wrist in his hand. Holding it, he proceeded
to say:

'A history of a strange marriage, and a strange mother, and a revenge,
and a suppression.--Aye, aye, aye? this pulse is beating curiously!
It appears to me that it doubles while I touch it. Are these the usual
changes of your malady, madame?'

There was a struggle in her maimed arm as she twisted it away, but there
was none in her face. On his face there was his own smile.

'I have lived an adventurous life. I am an adventurous character. I have
known many adventurers; interesting spirits--amiable society! To one
of them I owe my knowledge and my proofs--I repeat it, estimable
lady--proofs--of the ravishing little family history I go to commence.
You will be charmed with