“And you do this work!” she cried.
“I would trust no other man to do this work I have in hand,” he answered. “Nobles and princes are among your Jacobite plotters—we do not send hired scum to combat them. I am the Master of Stair.”
“Ah! and why do you tell me?”
“You!” his eyes flickered over her scornfully. “Why should I not tell you?”
“Would you bribe me to your side?” she asked breathlessly.
“No,” he answered; “I have accomplished my end. I know all I need to know. I touched the bottom of their plot days ago.” He rose with a sudden laugh. “Berwick and his fellow-fools! They have been too secure—did they think we had neither eyes nor ears!”
Celia Hunt moistened her lips slowly with the tip of her red tongue.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
He hesitated, glanced at her with gloomy scorn. “I am going to London as Andrew Wedderburn; to-morrow night I shall meet Jerome Caryl and obtain from him the names of all concerned in this last plot.”
“Then?”