"You need not tell me your scheme, man," he said, "I have guessed it already. I know now why you had need of a rogue for the furtherance of your project. I, Michael Kestyon, am to go to Paris and there impersonate my love-sick cousin, carry away the bride by that trick, and thus forever so shame her, that a dissolution of that child-marriage will readily be granted by Church and State."
"And that for the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, friend Michael! one hundred and twenty thousand pounds—a fortune that would tempt a King!" added Sir John earnestly.
Michael made no comment, and there was thus an instant's silence at this end of the table where sat the three men: only a second or two mayhap during which a blasphemous oath uttered at the further end of the room seemed in some strange and occult way to mark the descent of a soul one step further down on its way to Hell. One instant during which the tempter watched the tempted, and from the giddy heights of future satisfied ambition showed him the world conquered at the paltry price of momentary dishonour.
One fitful ray of a ghoulish moon searched, through a narrow slit between swishing curtains, the fleshy face of Ayloffe, the descendant of the Hebrew bondswoman; the thickly-lidded eyes fixed like those of some poison-giving reptile upon the trapped victim. It played weird and ghost-like upon the dull scarlet of his cloak, and made strange shadows beneath his heavy brows, giving him an eerie, satanic expression, which Stowmaries—whose brain was on fire—was quick to note.
He shuddered and instinctively drew away. But Michael Keyston who had not stirred a muscle, who had scarce breathed during that moment's solemn pause, now leaned forward and said quietly:
"For the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, I will do what you wish."
Then noting that the look of satisfaction on Stowmaries' face was not wholly unmixed with contempt, he added with a quick return to his flippant mood:
"Nay, Cousin, look not so loftily from adown the giddy heights of supposed integrity. 'Tis useless at this stage to despise the hand that will help you in your need. Methinks that my share in the intrigue is no more unavowable than your own. 'Tis you are married to the lady and owe her protection, yet you offer money to further treachery against her. Now I have never seen the wench and am no traitor to her since I do not know her. I owe her no allegiance; she is but one woman out of a million to me. Have you never tried to win a woman by trickery, good Coz?"
He spoke lightly, even gaily, only Sir John—the keen observer of his fellowmen—noted that the laugh which accompanied this tirade had a hollow ring in it, also that Michael after he had spoken drank down one after another two large goblets full of wine.
"Do not let us split hairs, gentlemen, over the meaning of a word," said Ayloffe pleasantly. "Friend Michael, my hand on it. I devised the scheme, and confess that my thoughts flew to you for its accomplishment." He put out his hand, but Michael seemed to ignore the gesture. With a shrug of the shoulders indicating good-tempered toleration, the other continued glibly, "Let us own to it, gentlemen, we are all rogues, every one of us here present; I, who made the proposal, my lord of Stowmaries who pays the piper, and Michael who takes a fortune in exchange for a trick. Bah, gentlemen, 'tis but a merry jest, and, on my honour, no harm can come to any one. Is not Michael Kestyon henceforth rich, as well as highly-connected and amiable of mien. By Gad the practised hand of his future father-in-law together with that of a court barber, would soon turn him into the most gallant gentleman in the two kingdoms."