have been taken from the
envelope, and found in the garret just at the right moment, either by
Cynthia herself or one of the other members of the family, who was to be
led on, as it were accidentally, to the discovery. The right moment must
be close at hand. He was to offer his hand--and heart, of course--to
Myrtle, and it was to be accepted. As soon as the decision of the land
case was made known, or not long afterwards, there was to be a search in
the garret for papers, and these were to be discovered in a certain
dusty recess, where, of course, they would have been placed by Miss
Cynthia.

And now the one condition which gave any value to these arrangements
seemed like to fail. This obscure youth--this poor fool, who had been on
the point of marrying a simpleton to whom he had made a boyish
promise--was coming between him and the object of his long pursuit,--the
woman who had every attraction to draw him to herself. It had been a
matter of pride with Murray Bradshaw that he never lost his temper so as
to interfere with the precise course of action which his cool judgment
approved; but now he was almost beside himself with passion. His labors,
as he believed, had secured the favorable issue of the great case so
long pending. He had followed Myrtle through her whole career, if not as
her avowed lover, at least as one whose friendship promised to flower in
love in due season. The moment had come when the scene and the
characters in this village drama were to undergo a change as sudden and
as brilliant as in those fairy spectacles where the dark background
changes to a golden palace and the sober dresses are replaced by robes
of regal splendor. The change was fast approaching; but he, the
enchanter, as he had thought himself, found his wand broken, and his
power given to another.

He could not sleep during that night. He paced his room, a prey to
jealousy and envy and rage, which his calm temperament had kept him from
feeling in their intensity up to this miserable hour. He thought of all
that a maddened nature can imagine to deaden its own intolerable
anguish. Of revenge. If Myrtle rejected his suit, should he take her
life on the spot, that she might never be another's,--that neither man
nor woman should ever triumph over him,--the proud, ambitious man,
defeated, humbled, scorned? No! that was a meanness of egotism which
only the most vulgar souls could be capable of. Should he challenge her
lover? It was not the way