How easily might some disastrous
turn of fortune's wheel that other night have left him a victim
upon those fields instead of the gallant horse who carried him! How
skilfully and easily had Lord Claud played upon him, prompting him
to an act which a few months ago he would have shrunk from in the
greatest horror! There was something almost diabolic in the beauty,
the fascination, the cleverness, of the man. Tom made a resolution,
as these things flashed through his mind, that he would have no
more dealings with him, if this was what they led to. He even began
to doubt now whether it was true that he had applied in vain for
the reward promised them for their secret service expedition. It
might all be a part of a preconcerted plan, in order to cajole Tom
into thinking he had some sort of right to act as they had done
with regard to this money.
He began to feel doubts of everything now, and above all of
himself. Had he been made a tool of and a dupe? And was he walking
blindfold into a net ready for his feet?
He slept but restlessly upon his bed that night, revolving many
things in his mind, and almost resolving to see Lord Claud no more,
but to adopt a new method of life in this wonderful city, albeit he
scarcely knew what that life should be.
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