With this conviction, Meadows had committed crimes of the deepest dye to possess Susan. Villain as he was, it may be doubted whether he would have committed these felonies had he doubted for an instant her ultimate happiness. The unconquerable dog said to himself: “The day will come that I will tell her how I have risked my soul for her; how I have played the villain for her; and she shall throw her arms round my neck, and bless me for committing all those crimes to make her so happy against her will.”
It remained to clinch the nail.
He came to Grassmere every day; and one night that the old man was telling Susan and him how badly things were going with him, he said, with a cheerful laugh: “I wonder at you, father-in-law, taking on that way. Do you think Susan will let you be uncomfortable for want of a thousand pounds or two?”
Now this remark was slyly made while Susan was at the other end of the room, so that she could hear it, but was not supposed to. He did not look at her for some time, and then her face was scarlet.
The next day he said privately to old Merton: “The day Susan and I go to church together, you must let me take your engagements and do the best I can with them.”
“Ah, John, you are a friend! but it will take a pretty deal to set me straight again.”
“How much? Two thousand?”
“More, I am afraid, and too much—”
“Too much for me to take out of my pocket for a stranger; but not for my wife's father—not if it was ten times that.”
From that hour Meadows had an ally at Grassmere, working heart and soul to hasten the wedding-day.