u,
try to molest me by word or act, and you are a dead woman; I forbid
you even to write to me. Now go to the devil in your own way," and
without another word he took up his hat and umbrella, walked to the
door, unlocked it and went, leaving the Tiger huddled together upon
the floor.

For half-an-hour or more the woman remained thus, the bag of money in
her hand. Then she struggled to her feet, her face livid and her body
shaking.

"Ugh," she said, "I'm as weak as a cat. I thought he meant to do it
that time, and he will too, for sixpence. He's got me there. I am
afraid to die. I can't bear to die. It is better to lose the money
than to die. Besides, if I blow on him he'll be put in chokey and I
shan't be able to get anything out of him, and when he comes out he'll
do for me." And then, losing her temper, she shook her fist in the air
and broke out into a flood of language such as would neither be pretty
to hear nor good to repeat.

Mr. Quest was a man of judgment. At last he had realised that in one
way, and one only, can a wild beast be tamed, and that is by terror.

CHAPTER XVIII

"WHAT SOME HAVE FOUND SO SWEET"

Time went on. Mr. Quest had been back at Boisingham for ten days or
more, and was more cheerful than Belle (we can no longer call her his
wife) had seen him for many a day. Indeed he felt as though ten years
had been lifted off his back. He had taken a great and terrible
decision and had acted upon it, and it had been successful, for he
knew that his evil genius was so thoroughly terrified that for a long
while at least he would be free from her persecution. But with Belle
his relations remained as strained as ever.

Now that the reader is in the secret of Mr. Quest's life, it will
perhaps help him to understand the apparent strangeness of his conduct
with reference to his wife and Edward Cossey. It is quite true that
Belle did not know the full extent of her husband's guilt. She did not
know that he was not her husband, but she did know that nearly all of
her little fortune had been paid over to another woman, and that woman
a common, vulgar woman, as one of Edith's letters which had fallen
into her hands by chance very clearly showed her. Therefore, had he
attempted to expose her proceedings or even to control her actions,
she had in her hand an effective weapon of defence wherewith she could
and would have given blow for blow. This state of affai