"Hath my lord of Stowmaries thus conspired?" she asked coldly.
"I think so," replied Daniel Pye.
"How do you mean? That you think so is no proof that he hath done it."
"I can soon bring forward the proofs," said Pye with a knowing leer directed at her from under his shaggy brows, "if you, Mistress, will help me."
Rose Marie felt a shudder which was almost one of loathing creeping up her spine, at sight of the expression in the man's face.
It told such an infamous tale of base thoughts and desires, of cupidity and of triumphant revenge, that her every nerve rebelled against further parleyings with such a villain.
But there was something more than mere feminine curiosity in her wish to know something definite of what was really passing in the mind of Daniel Pye. That shrewd instinct and sound common sense—which is the inalienable birthright of the French bourgeoisie—told her that the man would not have undertaken the arduous and costly journey from England to France unless he had some powerful motive to prompt him thereunto, or—what was more likely still—some reward to gain.
The desire to learn the truth of this motive or of this hoped-for gain remained therefore paramount in her mind, and she did her best not to give outward expression to her sense of repulsion when Daniel Pye drew nearer to her in an attempt at confidential familiarity.
He was far from guessing that his last words had done aught but please this wench and her father, both of whom had as serious a grievance against Lord Stowmaries as he himself had against Mistress Peyton.
It had not taken the dismissed serving-man very long to learn the lesson of how he could best be revenged on his past mistress. The easiest way to hit at the ambitious lady was undoubtedly—as Master Tongue had pointed out to him—by bringing the man she desired to marry to humiliation and ruin. Michael Kestyon's successful claim to the peerage of Stowmaries had paved the way for the more complete undoing of my lord, and Daniel Pye soon knew the lesson by heart which the informers of Whitefriars had taught him.