Bayre drew back and looked down at him.
“Well, look here, much as I want money—I don’t deny that—I’d rather scrape along through life on as many pence a day as my uncle has pounds than buy his secrets from the vermin who take his pay and are ready to sell their master!”
And with a gesture of unutterable contempt Bayre turned away and made briskly for the cliff.
He heard a mocking laugh behind him, and the word “Fool!” uttered in no very subdued tone, as he reached the path which led to the cottage where he was staying.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BLACKMAILERS
This interview with Pierre Vazon gave Bartlett Bayre much food for reflection.
That the peasant and his daughter had some hold upon his uncle of a doubtful kind he had long felt sure. Now, however, he could no longer entertain any doubts on the subject.
The worst of it was, that the words used by Pierre Vazon, his tone, his whole attitude, pointed rather to guilt than to madness in his employer. If he had had convincing proofs of his master’s insanity, the peasant would surely not have waited to make it known to a chance visitor to the island, but would have communicated with old Mr Bayre’s legal advisers, whose address could scarcely be unknown to so astute and watchful a person.
Strong though his suspicions of his uncle were, yet stronger was the young man’s disgust at the treachery of the peasant who had lived upon his master’s bounty for so long. And he began to find excuses for the savagery of the old man who, living shut up as he did, after having experienced two cruel blows to his affections, was deceived, betrayed, and perhaps bullied, by creatures meaner than himself.
And then it occurred to him even to excuse the frenzy which had presumably led to his uncle’s intended attack on himself. How would the recluse, living in himself, brooding always over his wrongs and his losses, regard such an attempt as his own nephew had made to get into his house?