you owe me is repaid within the next week, my solicitors have my instructions, which are quite unalterable, to proceed in bankruptcy against you without further delay.
"The principal and interest now total to the sum of fourteen thousand pounds. Your promises to repay, and your innumerable requests for more time in which to do so, now extend over a period of three years. I have preserved all your letters on the subject at issue between us, and I find that, so far from decreasing your indebtedness when your promises became due, you have almost invariably asked me for further sums, which, in foolish confidence, as I feel now, I have advanced to you.
"It would be superfluous to point out to you what bankruptcy would mean to you in your position. Ruin would be the only word. And it would be no ordinary bankruptcy. I have a by no means uncertain idea where these large sums have gone, and my knowledge can hardly fail to be shared by others in London society.
"I have still a chance to offer you, however, and, perhaps, you will find me by no means the tyrant you think.
"There are certain services which you can do me, and which, if you fall in with my views, will not only wipe off the few thousands of your indebtedness, but provide you with a capital sum which will place you above the necessity for any such financial manoeuvres in the future as your—shall I say infatuation?—has led you to resort to in the past.
"If you care to lunch with me at my rooms in the Hotel Cecil, at two o'clock, the day after to-morrow—Friday—we may discuss your affairs quietly. If not, then I must refer you to my solicitors entirely.
"Yours sincerely,
The big man gave a horrid groan—half snarl, half
