"After finding him again, do you think I will endure this a moment longer?" asked Elizabeth scornfully.
Pound's reply was in the reflective manner.
"Well," said he, with slow deliberation, "I'm not sure but what it mightn't, after all, do good for you to see him."
"Good—do good! To whom? What do you mean? What have you to do with it?"
Pound ground his teeth; he had everything to do with it. It was the old story over again: this woman was using him as the guide to her own ends, yet would cut him adrift the very moment those ends were in sight. How he hated her! With his lips he cringed to her, in his heart he ground her to powder; but if he was not in the position to bully her to-day, he had lost few opportunities when he was; and he was at least forearmed against her.
He affected a bluff kindliness of manner that would not have deceived her had Mrs. Ryan been a little more composed.
"Look here, missis, you and me, we've been bound up in a ticklish job together. I don't say as I've always done by you as I should, but there is allowances to be made for a man that carries, as they say, his life in his hand, and that's staked his life on this here job. I don't say, either, as we're both on the exact same tack, but one thing's certain; we must work together now, and if you can't work my way, why, I must work yours. Now, missis, you ain't fit for the strain of seeing him. If you could see your own face you'd know it, ma'am."
Her eyes had opened wide at his tone; she sighed deeply at his last words.
"No," she said sadly, "I know I'm not fit for much. But I must go—I must go."
"Then if you must, ma'am, take a teaspoonful of this first. It'll help you through, and anyway keep you from fainting, as you did last time. I got it in Melmerbridge this afternoon, after I see you look so sick."