“I can only guess what you have, but as you have been willing to provide two hundred and sixty for Mr. Melbury, I am forced to speculate that this sum, large though it may be, must represent only a portion of it. In any case, I see from the papers that Mr. Evans has made a marvelous name for himself in town. I don’t doubt that a gentleman of your stature should have little difficulty raising funds against the earnings of his plantation.”

“You wish for me to borrow money from trusting gentlemen and let them suffer the consequences?”

“I cannot tell you how to raise the money, sir. Only that raise it you must.”

“And if I refuse?”

He shrugged. “I can always return to Mr. Melbury for his debt, sir. He will pay one way or the other, as he cannot afford to sit out the remainder of the election in a debtor’s prison. And as for you, if I cannot get two hundred and forty pounds from you, I know I may at the very least get one hundred and fifty from the king. If you take my meaning.”

I took a drink of wine. “I take your meaning to be very ill-natured,” I said.

“You may take it as you like, sir, but a gentleman must always pursue his business, and that is no more than I have done here. No one can say it’s more that I’ve done, and no one can criticize me either.”

“I will not speak to that point,” I said, “only the other. As to the sum, you may perceive that it is a very large amount, not easily at my disposal. I must have a week.”

“That cannot be. It is not so good-natured of you to ask for it.”

“Then how much time do you think fitting for the raising of this sum?”

“I will come back in three days, sir. Three days, I say. If you do not have the money for me, I fear I must take actions we would both prefer to see avoided.”

Mrs. Sears had seen this villain enter my rooms. Would she notice, I wondered, if she never saw him emerge? But tempting though it might have been, I was not willing to commit that most egregious of crimes to protect an identity that was already doomed. Miller had recognized me. Sooner or later, another would recognize me as well. Perhaps that person would not be so kind as to come to me with this intelligence but would go to the constables instead. I had no choice but to let Miller go and to use the three remaining days as best I could.

I remained uncommonly silent as I considered my options, and Miller must have known what sorts of possibilities occurred to me, for he grew very pale and uneasy. “I must go at once,” he said, hurrying toward the door. “But you will hear from me in three days. Upon that you may depend.”

And so he left, and I knew then that my hand was forced. I had not as much time as I would have liked, but I hoped it would be enough.

I arrived at the Monument a quarter of an hour in advance of our appointed time, but Miriam was already there, enveloped in a hooded greatcoat. The hood was pulled down low, to keep her identity a secret, or perhaps to keep mine. Even in that bulky mass, however, I had no problem recognizing her in an instant.

She did not see me approach, so I stood for a moment to watch her as flurries of snow landed about her, melting as they touched the wool of her coat. She might have been my wife, I thought, if… but there was no if. I had begun to see that with painful clarity. The only if I could summon was if she had wished to be, but she had not, and this was the most painful if imaginable.

She turned as she heard my muted footsteps in the newly fallen snow. I took her gloved hand. “I hope you are well, madam.”

She let me hold on to her for as long as she could without risking a rudeness, and then withdrew the prize. Here was our entire relationship in miniature. “Thank you for meeting me,” she said.

“How could I not have?”

“I cannot say what you might think best. I only know that I felt the need to speak with you, and you have been so good as to oblige me.”

“And I shall always be thus,” I assured her. “Come, shall we get a dish of chocolate, or a glass of wine?”

“Mr. Weaver, I am not the sort of woman who may freely visit taverns or chocolate houses with a man not my husband,” she said sternly.

I attempted to show no sting. “Then let us stroll and talk,” I said. “With your hood, all the world may think you my illicit lover, but I suppose there is no helping that.”

The hood spared me from the distaste she no doubt registered. “I am sorry you saw Mr. Melbury lose his temper last night.”

“I am sorry it happened,” I said, “but if it must happen, I am not sorry to have been witness to it. Does he lose his temper with you often?”

“Not often,” she said quietly.

“But it has happened before?”

She nodded under her hood, and I knew from the way she moved her head that she was crying.

Oh, how I hated Melbury at that moment! I could have torn the arms from his body. Had not this lady suffered all her life, shuttled from family to family, from one keeper to another, until the most fortuitous of events had left her financially independent? I could not have been more astonished when she had sacrificed that independence to a man like Melbury, but she had taken a risk, such as we must all take in life. It was a terrible tragedy that she was to suffer for her venture.

“Is he violent with you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, not with me.”

There was something she would not yet say, yet I knew I could draw it out. “Tell me,” I said.

“He breaks things,” she said. “He smashes them. Mirrors, vases, plates, and goblets. Sometimes he throws them in my direction. Not quite at me, you understand, but in my direction. It is unpleasant enough.”

I drew both hands into fists. “I cannot endure this,” I said.

“But you must. You see, this is why I wanted to meet with you. I knew you would not rest until you found the truth, so I came to tell you the truth, but you must bother us no more. Griffin is not a perfect man, but he is a good one. He means to do important things for this country and to unmake this knot of corruption that binds our government.”

“I don’t give a fig for the knot of corruption,” I said, “only for you, Miriam.”

“Please don’t address me so familiarly, Mr. Weaver. It is not right.”

“Is it right that you should be under the torments of a tyrant?”

“He is no tyrant. He is but a man with weaknesses, such as you all have. It is only that some of his are more pronounced.”

“Such as gaming,” I said. “And debts.”

She nodded. “He does have those weaknesses, yes.”

“It is well, then, that you settled separate property upon yourself, lest his debts destroy your fortune.”

She said nothing, so I knew then what I had already suspected. “He has destroyed your fortune, hasn’t he?”

“He needed money to obtain the seat in the House,” she said. “He lost so much at play that he could not afford to stand for Parliament as he had long meant to do, as others in the party had expected him to do. But there were debts. He assured me that once he was elected there would be opportunities to make the money back. So you see it is vital that he get his seat, for if not we shall be quite ruined.”

“This is the good and virtuous man who will unmake the knot of corruption?”

“He is not the only man in this city to succumb to the evils of gaming.”

“True enough, but if he picked pockets he would hardly be the only man in this city to be guilty of that crime, either. That would not mean he was the more virtuous for it.”

“You are a fine man to talk about virtue,” she said.

I turned to her, but she looked away.

“Forgive me, Benjamin. Mr. Weaver. That was both cruel and false. Whatever else may be said of you, I know you are a man who loves what is right above all else. But though you strive to do what is best, you sometimes do what you know may be wrong. I don’t believe that makes you a bad man any more than it makes Mr. Melbury one.”