The fact was that the man’s mind was excited and bewildered by the scene which had taken place that afternoon with his master. He felt that he had been trampled upon—treated with every possible indignity—despised, menaced, and almost spit upon;—and he was compelled to suffer all—to bear everything—to endure those flagrant wrongs, without daring to murmur.
“But I will be avenged—terribly avenged!” thought he within himself, as he bent over the table in the public-house parlour, supporting his head upon his two hands: “yes—even though I should sacrifice myself, I will be avenged sooner or later. For years and years have I been his slave—his menial—his instrument—his tool;—and he has kept me in such utter subjection that it was not until lately I remembered that I really possessed a soul and a spirit of my own. The hard-hearted—cruel—remorseless wretch! I hate and abhor him with a malignant hatred and a savage abhorrence. No words are strong enough—no terms sufficiently potent to convey even to myself an idea of the magnitude of that aversion which I now entertain for him. But if he has me in his power in one way, he is at my mercy in many other others. He little suspects how deep an insight I possess into his affairs—his machinations—his dark plots. He thinks that I behold but the surface: he knows not that I have fathomed to the bottom!”
At this point in the clerk’s musings, the door of the parlour was opened, and a respectable-looking man, dressed in black, but with a white cravat entered the room.
“You are somewhat behind your time, Mr. Fitzgeorge,” said Green, as this individual—who was Lord William Trevelyan’s valet—seated himself by the clerk’s side.
“Only a few minutes,” responded Fitzgeorge. “And now to business without delay. It is fortunate that we are all alone in this parlour at present: otherwise I should have proposed to adjourn to a private room. Have you thought well of the subject I mentioned to you yesterday?”
“I have,” was the answer, delivered in a tone of decision: “and I am prepared to meet your wishes. But remember that I told you how completely I am in the power of the villain Heathcote; and if he were to discover that your noble master received his information through me——”
“He cannot possibly detect your instrumentality in the business, provided you do not betray yourself,” said Fitzgeorge.
“Then I cannot hesitate to serve you,” responded Green.
“Here are a hundred pounds in advance of the sum promised you,” continued the valet, producing bank-notes to the amount named; “and the other moiety shall be paid the moment the information you are about to give me shall have proved to be correct.”
“Ah! it is a long—long time since I could call so much money my own,” said Green, with a deep sigh, as he gazed upon the notes—half doubting whether it were possible that they were about to find their way into his pocket.