Mr. Pomeroy, looking down at him, laughed--a galling laugh. 'Lord!
Tommy, that was a hundred years ago,' he said contemptuously.
'You said nothing was changed!' 'Nothing is changed in my case,' Mr. Pomeroy answered confidently,
'except for the better. In your case everything is changed--for the
worse. Did you take her part upstairs? Are your hands clean now? Does
she see through you or does she not? Or, put it in another way, my
friend. It is your turn; what are you going to do?' 'Go,' the tutor answered viciously. 'And glad to be quit.' Mr. Pomeroy sat down opposite him. 'No, you'll not go,' he said in a low
voice; and drinking off half his wine, set down the glass and regarded
the other over it. 'Five and five are ten, Tommy. You are no fool, and I
am no fool.' 'I am not such a fool as to put my neck in a noose,' the tutor retorted.
'And there is no other way of coming at what you want, Mr. Pomeroy.' 'There are twenty,' Pomeroy returned coolly. 'And, mark you, if I fail,
you are spun, whether you help rue or no. You are blown on, or I can
blow on you! You'll get nothing for your cut on the head.' 'And what shall I get if I stay?' 'I have told you.' 'The gallows.' 'No, Tommy. Eight hundred a year.' Mr. Thomasson sneered incredulously, and having made it plain that he
refused to think--thought! He had risked so much in this enterprise,
gone through so much; and to lose it all! He cursed the girl's
fickleness, her coyness, her obstinacy! He hated her. And do what he
might for her now, he doubted if he could cozen her or get much from
her. Yet in that lay his only chance, apart from Mr. Pomeroy. His eye
was cunning and his tone sly when he spoke.
'You forget one thing,' he said. 'I have only to open my lips after I
leave.' 'And I am nicked?' Mr. Pomeroy answered. 'True. And you will get a
hundred guineas, and have a worse than Dunborough at your heels.' The tutor wiped his brow. 'What do you want?' he whispered.
'That old hag of a housekeeper has turned rusty,' Pomeroy answered.
'She has got it into her head something is going to be done to the girl.
I sounded her and I cannot trust her. I could send her packing, but
Jarvey is not much better, and talks when he is drunk. The girl must be
got from here.' Mr. Thomasson raised his eyebrows scornfully.