She is to be married in a fortnight
to the Earl of Dovercourt. This fiend has several imprudent
letters -- imprudent, Watson, nothing worse -- which were
written to an impecunious young squire in the country.
They would suffice to break off the match. Milverton will send
the letters to the Earl unless a large sum of money is paid him.
I have been commissioned to meet him, and -- to make the best
terms I can."
At that instant there was a clatter and a rattle in the street
below. Looking down I saw a stately carriage and pair, the
brilliant lamps gleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble
chestnuts. A footman opened the door, and a small, stout man
in a shaggy astrachan overcoat descended. A minute later he
was in the room.
Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large,
intellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual
frozen smile, and two keen grey eyes, which gleamed brightly
from behind broad, golden-rimmed glasses. There was something
of Mr. Pickwick's benevolence in his appearance, marred only by
the insincerity of the fixed smile and by the hard glitter of
those restless and penetrating eyes.
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