He almost guessed, too, that Stella already loved Leycester; he had seen her face turned to the young lord—had heard her voice as she spoke to him.
He ground his teeth together with vicious rage as he thought of the difference between her way of speaking to him and to Leycester.
"But she shall speak to me, look at me like that before the game is over," he swore to himself. "I can afford to wait for my opportunity; it will come, and I shall know how to use it. Curse him! Yes, I am determined now. I will take him from her."
It was a bold, audacious resolution; but then Jasper was both bold and audacious in the most dangerous of ways, in the cold, calculating manner of a cunning, unscrupulous man.
He was clever—undoubtedly clever; he had been very successful, and had made that success by his own unaided efforts. Already, young as he was, he was beginning to be talked about. When people were in any great difficulty in his branch of the law, they went to him, sure of finding him cool, ready, and capable.
His chambers in the inn held a little museum of secrets—secrets about persons of rank and standing, who were supposed to be quite free from such inconvenient things as skeletons in cupboards.
People came to him when they were in any social fix; when they owed more money than they could pay; when they wanted a divorce, or were anxious to hush up some secret, whose threatened disclosure involved shame and disgrace, and Jasper Adelstone was always ready with sound advice, and, better still, some subtle scheme or plan.
Yes, he was a successful man, and had failed so seldom—almost never—that he felt he could be confident in this matter, too.
"I have always done well for others," he thought. "I have gained some difficult points for other people; now I will undertake this difficult matter for myself."
He went home to the Rectory and pondered, recalling all he knew of old Etheridge. It was very little, and the rector could tell him no more than he knew already.