ot. You are right, Parson. But so much the better
for you and me!'

Mr. Thomasson sniffed. 'I don't follow you,' he said stiffly.

'Don't you? You weren't so dull years ago,' Mr. Pomeroy answered,
filling a glass as he stood. He held it in his hand and looked over it
at the other, who, ill at ease, fidgeted in his chair, 'You could put
two and two together then, Parson, and you can put five and five
together now. They make ten--thousand.'

'I don't follow you,' the tutor repeated, steadfastly looking away from
him.

'Why? Nothing is changed since we talked--except that he is out of it!
And that that is done for me for nothing, which I offered you five
thousand to do. But I am generous, Tommy. I am generous.'

'The next chance is mine,' Mr. Thomasson cried, with a glance of spite.

Mr. Pomeroy, looking down at him, laughed--a galling laugh. 'Lord!
Tommy, that was a hundred years ago,' he said contemptuously.

'You said nothing was changed!'

'Nothing is changed in my case,' Mr. Pomeroy answered confidently,
'except for the better. In your case everything is changed--for the
worse. Did you take her part upstairs? Are your hands clean now? Does
she see through you or does she not? Or, put it in another way, my
friend. It is your turn; what are you going to do?'

'Go,' the tutor answered viciously. 'And glad to be quit.'

Mr. Pomeroy sat down opposite him. 'No, you'll not go,' he said in a low
voice; and drinking off half his wine, set down the glass and regarded
the other over it. 'Five and five are ten, Tommy. You are no fool, and I
am no fool.'

'I am not such a fool as to put my neck in a noose,' the tutor retorted.
'And there is no other way of coming at what you want, Mr. Pomeroy.'

'There are twenty,' Pomeroy returned coolly. 'And, mark you, if I fail,
you are spun, whether you help rue or no. You are blown on, or I can
blow on you! You'll get nothing for your cut on the head.'

'And what shall I get if I stay?'

'I have told you.'

'The gallows.'

'No, Tommy. Eight hundred a year.'

Mr. Thomasson sneered incredulously, and having made it plain that he
refused to think--thought! He had risked so much in this enterprise,
gone through so much; and to lose it all! He cursed the girl's
fickleness, her coyness, her obstinacy! He hated her. And do what he
might for her now, he doubted if he could cozen her or get much from
her. Yet in that lay his only chance, apart from Mr. Pomeroy. His eye
was cunni