ing
her scruples in those yet fouler refinements of hoped revenge which her
conversations with Varney have betrayed to the reader. The failure of
the earlier researches for the lost Vincent, the suspended activity
of Stubmore, left the more impatient murderer leisure to make the
acquaintance of St. John, steal into the confidence of Helen, and render
the insurances on the life of the latter less open to suspicion than if
effected immediately on her entrance into that shamble-house, and before
she could be supposed to form that affection for her aunt which made
probable so tender a forethought. These causes of delay now vanished,
the Parcae closed the abrupt woof, and lifted the impending shears.

Lucretia had long since dropped the name of Braddell. She shrank from
proclaiming those second spousals, sullied by the degradation to which
they had exposed her, and the suspicions implied in the inquest on her
husband, until the hour for acknowledging her son should arrive. She
resumed, therefore, the name of Dalibard, and by that we will continue
to call her. Nor was Varney uninfluential in dissuading her from
proclaiming her second marriage till occasion necessitated. If the son
were discovered, and proofs of his birth in the keeping of himself
and his accomplice, his avarice naturally suggested the expediency of
wringing from that son some pledge of adequate reward on succession to
an inheritance which they alone could secure to him; out of this fancied
fund not only Grabman, but his employer, was to be paid. The concealment
of the identity between Mrs. Braddell and Madame Dalibard might
facilitate such an arrangement. This idea Varney locked as yet in his
own breast. He did not dare to speak to Lucretia of the bargain he
ultimately meditated with her son.

CHAPTER XIX. MR. GRABMAN'S ADVENTURES.

The lackeys in their dress liveries stood at the porch of Laughton as
the postilions drove rapidly along the road, sweeping through venerable
groves, tinged with the hues of autumn, up to that stately pile. From
the window of the large, cumbrous vehicle which Percival, mindful of
Madame Dalibard's infirmity, had hired for her special accommodation,
Lucretia looked keenly. On the slope of the hill grouped the deer, and
below, where the lake gleamed, the swan rested on the wave. Farther on
to the left, gaunt and stag-headed, rose, living still, from the depth
of the glen, Guy's memorable oak. Coming now in sight, though at a