“But what would her friends say if they learnt I had bargained away half her life?” asked Mr Norrell.

“Oh! They will never know any thing of it. You may rely upon me for that,” said the gentleman. “Besides, she has no life now. Half a life is better than none.”

Half a life did indeed seem a great deal better than none. With half a life Miss Wintertowne might marry Sir Walter and save him from bankruptcy. Then Sir Walter might continue in office and lend his support to all Mr Norrell’s plans for reviving English magic. But Mr Norrell had read a great many books in which were described the dealings of other English magicians with persons of this race and he knew very well how deceitful they could be. He thought he saw how the gentleman intended to trick him.

“How long is a life?” he asked.

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair spread his hands in a gesture of the utmost candour. “How long would you like?”

Mr Norrell considered. “Let us suppose she had lived until she was ninety-four. Ninety-four would have been a good age. She is nineteen now. That would be another seventy-five years. If you were to bestow upon her another seventy-five years, then I see no reason why you should not have half of it.”

“Seventy-five years then,” agreed the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, “exactly half of which belongs to me.”

Mr Norrell regarded him nervously. “Is there any thing more we must do?” he asked. “Shall we sign something?”

“No, but I should take something of the lady’s to signify my claim upon her.”

“Take one of these rings,” suggested Mr Norrell, “or this necklace about her neck. I am sure I can explain away a missing ring or necklace.”

“No,” said the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. “It ought to be something … Ah! I know!”

Drawlight and Lascelles were seated in the drawing-room where Mr Norrell and Sir Walter Pole had first met. It was a gloomy enough spot. The fire burnt low in the grate and the candles were almost out. The curtains were undrawn and no one had put up the shutters. The rattle of the rain upon the windows was very melancholy.

“It is certainly a night for raising the dead,” remarked Mr Lascelles. “Rain and trees lash the window-panes and the wind moans in the chimney – all the appropriate stage effects, in fact. I am frequently struck with the play-writing fit and I do not know that tonight’s proceedings might not inspire me to try again – a tragi-comedy, telling of an impoverished minister’s desperate attempts to gain money by any means, beginning with a mercenary marriage and ending with sorcery. I should think it might be received very well. I believe I shall call it, ’Tis Pity She’s a Corpse.”