"By G----d, I'll show you better than that!" the Irishman answered between oaths. "They are three and we are three. Wait! I'll have them watched every minute of the day, and by-and-by it'll be our turn. A little money----"
"Money!" old Grocott shrieked, clawing the air. And he got up hurriedly, and sat down again. "Always money! More money! But you'll have none of mine! Not a farthing! Not a farthing more!"
"Why not, fool, if it will bring in a thousand per cent.," Hawkesworth growled. The thin veneer of fashion that had duped poor Sophia was gone. With the loss of the venture, on which he had staked his all, the man stood forth a plain unmitigated ruffian. "Why not?" he continued, bending his brows. "D'you think anything is to be done without money? And I shall risk more than money, old skinflint!"
The woman looked at the man, her eyes gleaming; her face, under the red that splashed it, was livid. "What'll you do?" she muttered, "what'll you do?" She had been--almost a lady. The chance would never, never, never recur! When she thought of what she had lost, and how nearly she had won it, she was frantic. "What'll you do?" she repeated.
"Hark, I hear the sound of coaches The hour of attack approaches, And turns our lead to gold!"
Hawkesworth hummed for answer. "Gold is good, but I'll wait my opportunity, and I'll have gold and--a pound of flesh!"
"Ah!" she said thirstily. And then to her father: "Do you hear, old man? You'll give him what he wants."
"I'll not!" he screamed. "I shall die a beggar! I shall die in a ditch! I tell you I----" his voice suddenly quavered off as he met his daughter's eyes. He was silent.
"I think so," the Irishman murmured grimly.
A week later the sun of a bright May morning shone on King's Square, once known as Monmouth, now as Soho, Square. Before the duke's town house on the east side of the Square--on the left of the King's Statue which then, and for many years to come, faced Monmouth House--a travelling carriage waited, attended by a pair of mounted grooms, and watched at a respectful distance by a half-circle of idle loungers. It was in readiness to convey Lady Coke and Lady Betty Cochrane into Sussex. On the steps of the house lounged no less a person than the duke himself; who, unlike his proud Grace of Petworth, was at no pains to play a part. On the contrary, he sunned himself where he pleased, nor thought it beneath him to display the anxiety on his daughter's account which would have become a meaner man. He knew, too, what he was about in the present matter; neither the four sturdy big-boned horses, tossing their tasselled heads, nor the pair of armed outriders, nor Watkyns, Sir Hervey's valet, waiting hat in hand at the door of the chariot, escaped his scrutiny. He had the tongue of a buckle secured here, and a horse's hoof lifted there--and his Grace was right, there was a stone in it. He inquired if the relay at Croydon was ordered, he demanded whether it was certain that Sir Hervey's horses would meet them at Lewes. Finally--for he knew that part of the country--he asked what was the state of the roads beyond Grinstead, and whether the Ouse was out.