red to the false strength
which deceives him; he will have less need of Dalibard; and then--then
let the Frenchman beware! I have already a plot to turn his schemes
to his own banishment. Come to Southampton, then, as soon as you
can,--perhaps the day you receive this; on Wednesday, at farthest. Your
last letter implies blame of my policy with respect to Vernon. Again I
say, it is necessary to amuse my uncle to the last. Before Vernon can
advance a claim, there will be weeping at Laughton. I shall weep, too,
perhaps; but there will be joy in those tears, as well as sorrow,--for
then, when I clasp thy hand, I can murmur, "It is mine at last, and
forever!"

Adieu! No, not adieu,--to our meeting, my lover, my beloved! Thy
LUCRETIA.

An hour after Miss Clavering had departed on her visit, Dalibard
returned the letter to his son, the seal seemingly unbroken, and bade
him replace it in the hollow of the tree, but sufficiently in sight to
betray itself to the first that entered. He then communicated the plan
he had formed for its detection,--a plan which would prevent Lucretia
ever suspecting the agency of his son or himself; and this done, he
joined Sir Miles in the gallery. Hitherto, in addition to his other
apprehensions in revealing to the baronet Lucretia's clandestine
intimacy with Mainwaring, Dalibard had shrunk from the thought that
the disclosure would lose her the heritage which had first tempted his
avarice or ambition; but now his jealous and his vindictive passions
were aroused, and his whole plan of strategy was changed. He must crush
Lucretia, or she would crush him, as her threats declared. To ruin her
in Sir Miles's eyes, to expel her from his house, might not, after all,
weaken his own position, even with regard to power over herself. If
he remained firmly established at Laughton, he could affect
intercession,--he could delay, at least, any precipitate union with
Mainwaring, by practising on the ambition which he still saw at work
beneath her love; he might become a necessary ally; and then--why, then,
his ironical smile glanced across his lips. But beyond this, his quick
eye saw fair prospects to self-interest: Lucretia banished; the heritage
not hers; the will to be altered; Dalibard esteemed indispensable to the
life of the baronet. Come, there was hope here,--not for the heritage,
indeed, but at least for a munificent bequest.

At noon, some visitors, bringing strangers from London whom Sir
Miles had