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.”
CHAPTER LII. THE NIGHT AT SEA
The Saturday—the eventful day on which Kate was to have her answer from Sir Within—came at last. It was a dark, lowering morning, and though there was scarcely an air of wind, the sea rolled heavily in, and broke in great showers of spray over the rocks, sure sign that a storm was raging at a distance.
From an early hour she had been down to the shore to watch if any boat could be seen, but not a sail could be descried, and the fishermen told her that though the wind had a faint sound in it, there were few Westport men would like to venture out in such a sea.
“If you cannot see a boat before noon, Tim Hennesy,” said she to one of the boatmen, “you’ll have to man the yawl, for I mean to go over myself.”
“It will be a hard beat against the wind, Miss,” said the man. “It will take you an hour to get out of the bay here.”
“I suppose we shall reach Westport before morning?”