“No, by all that’s holy!” cried O’Rorke. “That he never did! You might trick her, you might cheat her—and it wouldn’t be so easy to do it, either—but, take my word for it, the man that would insult her, and get off free, isn’t yet born!”
“What could she do, except go off?” said Ladarelle, scoffingly.
“That’s not the stuff they’re made of where she comes from, young man.”
And, in his eagerness, he for a moment forgot all respect and deference; nor did the other seem to resent the liberty, for he only smiled as he heard it, and then said:
“All I have been telling you now is merely to prepare you for what I want you to do, and mind, if you stand by me faithfully and well, your fortune is made. I ask no man’s help without being ready and willing to pay for it—to pay handsomely, too! Is that intelligible?”
“Quite intelligible.”
“Now, the short and long of the story is this: If this old fool were to marry that girl, he could encumber my estate—for it is mine—with a jointure, and I have no fancy to pay some twelve or fifteen hundred a year—perhaps more—to Biddy somebody, and have, besides, a lawsuit for plate, or pictures, or china, or jewels, that she claimed as matter of gift—and all this, that an old worn-out rake should end his life with an act of absurdity!”
“And he could leave her fifteen hundred a year for ever,” muttered O’Rorke, thoughtfully.
“Nothing of the kind. For her life only; and even that, I believe, we might break by law—at least, Palmer says so.”.
All this Ladarelle said hastily, for he half suspected he had made a grievous blunder in pointing out the wealth to which she would succeed as Sir Within’s widow.