you shall ever find with me.
There is my hand on it."

Hope at the last was taken off his guard, and took the proffered hand.
That is a binding action, and somehow he could no longer go back.

Then Bartley told him he should live in the house at first, to break the
parting. "And from this hour," said he, "you are no clerk nor manager,
but my associate in business, and on your own terms."

"Thank you," said Hope, with a sigh.

"Now lose no time; get her into the house at once while the clerks are
away, and meantime I must deal with the nurse, and overcome the many
difficulties. Stay, here is a five-pound note. Buy yourself a new suit,
and give the child a good meal. But pray bring her here in half an hour
if you can."

Then Bartley took him to the lobby, and let him out in the street, whilst
he went into the house to buy the nurse, and make her his confidante.

He had a good deal of difficulty with her; she was shocked at the
proposal, and, being a woman, it was the details that horrified her. She
cried a good deal. She stipulated that her darling should have Christian
burial, and cried again at the doubt. But as Bartley conceded everything,
and offered to settle a hundred pounds a year on her, so long as she
lived in his house and kept his secret, he prevailed at last, and found
her an invaluable ally.

To dispose of this character for the present we must inform the reader
that she proved a woman can keep a secret, and that in a very short time
she was as fond of Grace Hope as she had been of Mary Bartley.

We have said that Colonel Clifford's talk penetrated Monckton's ear, but
produced no great impression at the time. Not so, however, when he had
listened to Bartley's proposal, Hope's answer, and all that followed.
Then he put this and Colonel Clifford's communication together, and saw
the terrible importance of the two things combined. Thus, as a
congenital worm grew with Jonah's gourd, and was sure to destroy it,
Bartley's bold and elaborate scheme was furnished from the outset with a
most dangerous enemy.

Leonard Monckton was by nature a schemer and by habit a villain, and he
was sure to put this discovery to profit. He came out of the little
office and sat down at his desk, and fell into a brown-study.

He was not a little puzzled, and here lay his difficulty. Two attractive
villainies presented themselves to his ingenious mind, and he naturally
hesitated between them. One was to levy black-mail on Bar