ht be shy, miss," said he after a pause. "Some on 'em's
easy scared, and this doesn't seem like a green one, not a bit of it.
Supposin' as he _won't_ be 'ticed, miss; there's only one way, then!"

For a moment she felt a keen stab of compunction, but, remembering the
stake she ventured, nerved herself to resist the pang. This was no
time for child's play, for a morbid sensitiveness, for weak indulgence
of the feelings.

"Tell him you have a message from _me_, from Miss Bruce," she replied
firmly. "It will lead him anywhere."

Jim looked as if he would rather set about the business in any other
way; nevertheless, he was keenly alive to the efficiency of so
tempting a bait, reflecting at the same time with a kind of awe on Mr.
Ryfe's temerity in affronting such a character as this.

Another hurried sentence. A light in Jim's eyes like that with which a
dog receives directions from its master, a gesture such as dismisses
the same dog imperiously to its kennel, and Miss Bruce walked quietly
home to her music and her embroidery, while the crossing-sweeper,
recovering his broom, hurried off in another direction to commence
operations against the unsuspecting Tom Ryfe.

That gentleman's feelings, as he sat in his uncle's office the morning
after Mrs. Stanmore's ball, were of no enviable nature. Malice,
hatred, and all uncharitableness might indeed sufficiently describe
the frame of mind in which he went about his daily business,
unfortunately on the present occasion an affair of such mere routine
as in no way to distract his attention from his sorrows and his
wrongs.

"She has dared me," thought he, poring over a deed he knew by heart,
and of which his eye only took in the form and outward semblance,
"challenged me to do my worst, and herself declared it is to be war
to the knife. O Maud, Maud, how could you, how could you! Was it not
enough to have wound yourself round my heart, to have identified
yourself with my hopes, my ambition, my manhood, my very existence,
and then with one turn of your hand to have destroyed them, each and
all, but you must add insult to injury--must scorn and trample on me
as well? Some men may stand this sort of treatment--I won't. I _have_
a pull over you. Ah! I'm not such a fool, after all, perhaps, as you
thought. I have it, and hang me, but I'll make use of it! You have
blasted my life, and thought it good fun, no doubt. I'll see if I
can't give tit-for-tat and spoil _your_ little game,