"The affair is very easy," answered Foreman, well pleased to bring him so easily to compliance. "I am about to place you in the service of poor Sir Thomas Overbury, who is a close prisoner in the Tower, you know. No one will be admitted to him but yourself; and, as he is very ill, you must be careful of him. Particularly, you must remark that, as I am his physician, he is to take nothing but what I send him. You must even, perhaps, cook his food for him; for there are sick people, you know, who will eat things that are hurtful to them."
"I understand, I understand," said Weston, with a nod of the head; "is there anything more?"
"Nothing," answered Foreman; "unless you like, by way of amusing yourself, to be very civil to the pretty lady you carried off from Highgate, who is there in the Tower, attending upon the Lady Arabella. You may ask her to take a glass of wine with you; and I will give you some glasses with twisted stalks, very beautiful to see, which I brought from Venice."
"Anything more?" asked the man, in a tone that Dr. Foreman did not altogether like.
"No," he replied; "no; you will have quite enough to do to effect this properly, though my Lord of Rochester will furnish you with sufficient powers, to prevent much trouble about it."
"Well," replied Weston; "I understand you, then, completely; but to be sure that I make no mistake, in consequence of delicate phrases, I had better repeat the whole in plain English."
"It may be as well," said Doctor Foreman, with a nod.
"Thus it is, then," answered Weston; "I am to go into the service of Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower, to have him quite in my own hands, and to give him the poison that you give me for him?" (Doctor Foreman nodded.) "Then am to make friends with the girl, and poison her too?" (Doctor Foreman nodded again.) And Weston proceeded: "And for all this I am to have a hundred nobles.--Come, come, dear doctor, it's time we should understand each other. Very likely, if I were but a common servant, such pay might be considered handsome. But people tell me you are my papa."
"There may be some truth in that," said Foreman, with a grin.
"Well, then," rejoined Weston; "you would not have your dear son put his neck in jeopardy for a hundred nobles?"