Ladarelle stood at a window of the Boar’s Head which commanded a view of the road into the town, and waited, watch in hand, for O’Rorke’s coming. The morning passed, and noon, and it was late in the day when a wearied horse, over-driven and steaming, drew up at the door, and the long looked-for traveller alighted.

Though burning with impatience to learn his news, Ladarelle saw the necessity of concealing his anxiety, and, opening his writing-desk, he affected to be deeply engaged writing when, conducted by a waiter, O’Rorke appeared.

A single glance as he passed the threshold told Ladarelle that his tidings were important. Already the fellow’s swagger declared it, and in the easy confidence with which he sat down, and in the careless way he rather threw than laid his hat on the table, might be seen that he felt himself “master of the situation.”

“You are later than I expected,” said Ladarelle, carelessly.

“I didn’t leave the place till after twelve. He made me go over the gardens and the forcing-houses, and after that the stables, till at one time I thought I’d not get away till to-morrow.”

“And what do you think of it all?”

“Grand!—grand! It’s the finest place I ever saw, and well kept up, too! There’s eight men in the garden, and the head-gardener told me he might have as many more, if he wanted them.”

“The horses are overfed; they are like prize oxen.”

“They’re fat, to be sure; but it’s fine to see them standing there, with their glossy skins, and their names over them, and their tails hanging down like tassels, and no more call for them to work than if they were lords themselves.”

“I’ll make a grand clearance of all that rubbish one day. I’ll have none of those German elephants, I promise you, when I come to the property.”

“He isn’t going to make room for you yet awhile, he says,” said O’Rorke, with a grin.

“What do you mean?”

“If what he said to me this morning is to be relied on, he means to marry.”

“And haye a family, perhaps?” added Ladarelle, with a laugh.

“He said nothing about that; he talked like a man that hoped to see many years, and happy ones.”

“No one ever lived the longer for wishing it, or else we heirs-expectant would have a bad time of it. But this is not the question. What answer did he give you?”

“There it is!”

And, as he spoke, he drew from his breast-pocket a large square-shaped letter, massively sealed, and after showing the address, “Miss Luttrell,” on the cover, he replaced it in his pocket.

“Do you know what’s in it?” asked Ladarelle, sharply.

“Only that there’s money, that’s all, for he said to me, ‘Any banker will cash it.’”

Ladarelle took a couple of turns of the room without speaking; then, coming directly in front of the other, he said:

“Now, then, Mr. O’Rorke, which horse do you back? Where do you stand to win? I mean, are you going to serve Sir Within or me?”

“He is the bird in the hand, any way!” said O’Rorke, with a grin of malicious meaning.

“Well, if you think so, I have no more to say, only that as shrewd a man as you are might see that an old fellow on the verge of the grave is not likely to be as lasting a friend as a man like myself. In other words, which life would you prefer in your lease?”

O’Rorke made no answer, but seemed sunk in thought.

“I’ll put the case before you in three words. You might help this girl in her plans—you might aid her so far that she could come back here, and remain either as this old man’s wife or mistress—I don’t know that there would be much difference, in fact, as the law stands, between the two—but how long would you be a welcome visitor here after that? You speculate on being able to come, and go, and stay here just as you please; you’d like to have this place as a home you could come to whenever you pleased, and be treated not merely with respect and attention, but with cordiality. Now, I just ask you, from what you have yourself told me of this girl, is that what you would expect when she was the mistress? Is she so staunch to her own people, that she would be true to you?”

For some minutes O’Rorke made no answer, and then, leaning both arms on the table before him, he said, in a slow, measured voice, “What do you offer me yourself?”

“I said last night, and I repeat it now, make your own terms.”

O’Rorke shook his head, and was silent.

“I am willing,” resumed Ladarelle, “to make you my land-steward, give you a house and a plot of ground rent free, and pay you eighty pounds a year. I’ll make it a hundred if I see you stand well to me!”

“I’ve got some debts,” muttered O’Rorke, in a low voice.

“What do they amount to?”

“Oh, they’re heavy enough; but I could settle them for a couple of hundreds.”

“I’ll pay them, then.”

“And, after that, I’d rather go abroad. I’d like to go and settle in Australia.”

“How much money would that require?”

“I want to set up a newspaper, and I couldn’t do it under two thousand pounds.”

“That’s a big sum, Master O’Rorke.”

“The devil a much the old man at the Castle there would think of it, if it helped him to what he wanted.”

“I mean, it’s a big sum to raise at a moment, but I don’t say it would be impossible.”

“Will you give it, then? That’s the short way to put it. Will you give it?”

“First, let me ask for what am I to give it? Is it that you will stand by me in this business to the very end, doing whatever I ask you, flinching at nothing, and taking every risk equally with myself?”

“And no risk that you don’t share yourself?”

“None!”

“It is worth thinking about, anyhow,” said O’Rorke, as he arose and paced the room, with his hands deep in his pockets; “that is, if the money is paid down—down on the nail—for I won’t take a bill, mind.”

“I’m afraid, O’Rorke, your experiences in life have not taught you to be very confiding.”

“I’ll tell you what they’ve taught me; they’ve taught me that wherever there’s money in anything, a man ought not to trust his own mother.”

In a few hurried words, Ladarelle explained that till he came to his estate, all his dealings for ready money were of the most ruinous kind; that to raise two thousand would cost him eventually nearly four; and, as he phrased it, “I’d rather see the difference in the pocket of an honest fellow who stood to me, than a rascally Jew who rogued me.”

“I’ll give you a post obit on Sir Within’s estate for three thousand, and, so far as a hundred pounds goes to pay your voyage, you shall not want it.”

O’Rorke did not at first like the terms. Whenever he ventured his chances in life, things had turned out ill; all his lottery tickets were blanks, and he shook his head doubtingly, and made no reply.

“Five o’clock already! I must be going,” said Ladarelle, suddenly looking at his watch.

“That’s a fine watch!” said O’Rorke, as he gazed at the richly-embossed crest on the case.

“If having my arms on the back is no objection to you, O’Rorke, take it. I make you a present of it.”

O’Rorke peered into his face with an inquisitiveness so full of unbelief as almost to be laughable, but the expression changed to a look of delight as Ladarelle took the chain from off his neck and handed the whole to him.

“May I never!” cried O’Rorke; “if I won’t be your equal. There’s the letter!” And he drew forth Sir Within’s despatch, and placed it in his hands.

Concealing all the delight he felt at this unlooked-for success, Ladarelle retired to the window to read the letter; nor did he at once break the seal. Some scruple—there were not many left him—did still linger amidst the wreck of his nature, and he felt that what he was about to do was a step lower in baseness than he had hitherto encountered. “After all,” muttered he, “if I hesitate about this, how am I to meet what is before me?” And so he broke the seal and tore open the envelope. “The old fool! the infatuated old fool!” broke from him, in an accent of bitter scorn, as he ran over the three lines which a trembling hand had traced. “I knew it would come to this. I said so all long. Here’s an order to pay Miss Luttrell or bearer two hundred pounds!” said he, turning to O’Rorke. “We must not cash this, or we should get into a precious scrape.”

“And what’s in the letter?” asked O’Rorke, carelessly.

“Nothing beyond his readiness to be of use, and all that. He writes with difficulty, he says, and that’s not hard to believe—an infernal scrawl it is—and he promises to send a long letter by the post tomorrow. By the way, how do they get the letters at Arran?”

“They send for them once a week to the mainland; on Saturdays, if I remember aright.”

“We must arrest this correspondence then, or we shall be discovered at once. How can we obtain her letters?”

“Easy enough. I know the boy that comes for them, and he can’t read, though he can tell the number of letters that he should have. I’ll have one ready to substitute for any that should be to her address.”

“Well thought of. I see, O’Rorke, you are the man I wanted; now listen to me attentively, and hear my plan. I must return to the Castle, and pretend that I have pressing business in town. Instead of taking the London mail, however, I shall proceed to Holyhead, where you must wait for me at the inn, the Watkins’ Arms. I hope to be there tomorrow morning early, but it may be evening before I can arrive. Wait, at all events, for my coming.”

“Remember that I promised to be back in Arran, with the answer to her letter, by Saturday.”

“So you shall. It is fully as important for me that you should keep your word.”

“Does he want her back again?” said O’Rorke, not fully satisfied that he had not seen Sir Within’s note.

“No, not exactly; at least, it is evasive, and very short. It is simply to this purport: ‘I conclude you have made a mistake by leaving me, and think you might have humility enough to acknowledge it; meanwhile, I send you a cheque for two hundred. I shall write to-morrow more fully.’”

O’Rorke was thoroughly aware, by the stammering confusion of the other’s manner, that these were not the terms of the note; but it was a matter which interested him very little, and he let it pass unchallenged. His calculation—and he had given a whole night to it—was briefly this: “If I serve Sir Within, I may possibly be well and handsomely rewarded, but I shall obtain no power of pressure upon him; under no circumstances can I extort from him one shilling beyond what he may be disposed to give me. If, on the other hand, I stand by Ladarelle, his whole character is in my hands. He is too unscrupulous not to compromise himself, and though his accomplice, I shall do everything in such a way that one day, if I need it, I may appear to have been his dupe. And such a position as this can be the source of untold money.”

Nor was it a small inducement to him to think that the side he adopted was adverse to Kate. Why he disliked her he knew not—that is, he would not have been well able to say why. Perhaps he might not readily have admitted the fact, though he well knew that to see her great, and prosperous, and high placed, a winner in that great lottery of life where he had failed so egregiously, would be to him the most intense misery, and he would have done much to prevent it.

Along with these thoughts were others, speculating on Ladarelle himself, and whom he was sorely puzzled whether to regard more as knave or fool, or an equal mixture of the two. “He’ll soon see that whatever he does he mustn’t try to cheat Tim O’Rorke,” muttered he; “and when he gets that far, I’ll not trouble myself more about his education.”