“Suppose now, child, that Mr. Scammell takes himself and his marriage agreement to the Court of Chancery. He complains that Miss Dorcas Slythe is fickle, that she prefers the stars and the sun and the moon to his own solid virtues. Shall I tell you what will happen? I shall! Nothing!” He laughed. “To my own certain knowledge the Court of Chancery has of this day twenty-three thousand cases pending…twenty-three thousand! I would not have thought there was that much ink in the land, let alone lawyer’s breath, but yet more cases come each day! Your case will be heard, Dorcas, it will be heard, but by that time you will be old, wrinkled and shrivelled and your money, such as it is, will have been drained from you by clever lawyers. And who, my child, will marry a fading flower whose future is tied up in Chancery?”

Campion said nothing. Mildred Swan had talked of “being baked in a lawyer’s pie,” and now she knew what it meant. Her future with Toby, that endless summer beneath a seamless sky, was being shredded and soiled by the frog-like, laughing man. He leaned forward, his voice a conspiratorial whisper.

“You want to be free of Mr. Scammell?” She said nothing. He looked dramatically into the corners of the room, as if someone might be listening. “Do you want to be free of Mr. Scammell, Dorcas, without the threat of Chancery either? Do you?”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Then give me the seal, Dorcas. Give it to me.”

“I don’t have it, sir.”

“Then you must marry Mr. Scammell!” He spoke as if she were a small child, a singsong intonation in his voice. “You’ll have to marry Brother Scammell!”

“No!”

He leaned back, smiling at her, and his voice became friendly. “My dear, dear Dorcas. What is it? Is it that you do not wish to make the beast with two backs with Brother Scammell? Is that it!” He laughed. “I can see you now, so happy in your bedroom.” His voice rose, became harder, and he flayed her with a graphic and grotesque description of Scammell mounting her. She tried to blot her ears, she shook her head, she moaned, but his voice was relentless in its obscene, sweaty vision of her future. He mocked it by calling it “love,” and his words painted a picture far worse than her own thoughts had been of Scammell clambering on her as a bull reared on to a heifer. She was in tears when he had finished. He watched her cry, waited till the sobs were gentler.

“You want to avoid that, Dorcas?”

“Yes!”

“Then give me the seal.”

“I don’t have it!”

“Then you must marry Mr. Scammell.”

“No!” It was half a sob, half a cry of protest.

Sir Grenville Cony watched her shrewdly. “One more chance, Dorcas, just one. You give me the seal of St. Matthew, and I will give you a hundred pounds, yes, a hundred pounds! Enough for you to live on, child, while you find someone you care for more than you do for Mr. Scammell.”