lars;
but everybody knows well enough that men sometimes get in the way of
a stray bullet, and that young persons occasionally do violence to
themselves in various modes,--by firearms, suspension, and other
means,--in consequence of disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than
from other motives. There was still another kind of accident which might
serve his purpose. If anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the
most natural thing in the world that his uncle should adopt him, his
nephew and only near relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, uncle Dudley
should take it into his head to marry again. In that case, where would
he, Dick, be? This was the most detestable complication which he could
conceive of. And yet he had noticed--he could not help noticing--that
his uncle had been very attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much
pleased with, that young woman from the school. What did that mean? Was
it possible that he was going to take a fancy to her?

It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which might
defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now within his
grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: sometimes at that
of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; sometimes at that of the
meek-looking, but no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher; sometimes at that of
the dark girl whom he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at that of
his much respected uncle, who, of course, could not be allowed to peril
the fortunes of his relatives by forming a new connection. It was a
frightful perplexity in which he found himself, because there was no
one single life an accident to which would be sufficient to insure the
fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property. If
it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one
person, there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make
that a serious difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that
a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to
be removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if
there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered the
case.

His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the
New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he
struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a
passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and
their de