The Great Temptation (Thriller Novel). Richard Marsh
about for taking a case of pills mere pills; pills for human consumption from London to New York?"
"I did not say what kind of pills; I just said pills."
"Hugh, I suspect. You can't accuse me of being naturally suspicious, but there is something about this business of yours which I don't like."
"Candidly, there's something about it which I like as little as you do. Were the position an ordinary one I should refuse without hesitation; but it will take me perhaps less than a month to go to New York and back, and when I return to London I'm to have five hundred pounds. You know I've always told you that if I could only have the command of such a sum I would start in business for myself. I'm pretty well known in the dried fruit trade; I have what I may call a nucleus of a connection; I believe I could count on getting a certain amount of credit. I'm as sure as one could be of anything of the kind, that in a year I could get a good business together, and probably a comfortable home for you. We could be married, secure in the comfortable knowledge that I had ceased to be a clerk and that there was a decent prospect in front of us. Give me a chance and I'll make a rich woman of you, Catherine."
"I like to hear you talk like that, but I don't want to be a rich woman, Hugh; though I should like to feel that you were working for yourself as well as for me, and that someone else would not get all the fruits of your labours. I'd love you to have a business of your own and be your own master."
"Then let me take that case of pills to America and earn that five hundred pounds."
She shook her head and smiled I thought a little sadly.
"I should be very glad for you to earn that five hundred pounds; but for taking a case of pills to America it really is too ridiculous and, I might also say, too thin! No one pays such a sum for such a service! I wonder what kind of pills they are? After all, one can earn even such a sum as five hundred pounds too dearly." She paused to listen. "Whoever can that be at the front door?"
As I listened to the sound of the knocker I was conscious of the truth of what she said that one can earn even such a sum as five hundred pounds too dearly.
"Surely," she whispered, as if she were afraid of being overheard, "you have not been here an hour! That can't be Mr. Stewart."
It had been a feeble, hesitating sort of knock; not the boisterous rat-tat-tat which I felt might herald Mr. Stewart. I knew before Mrs. Fraser opened the door of my sitting-room that the visitor was not the man who had offered what to me was a fortune for going as he put it across the pond,
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