"What do you mean?" inquired Craven, coloring, and shifting uneasily in his chair. "You wouldn't have me murder him, would you?"
"Don't name such a thing. I only mean, that if we got a good opportunity to expose him to some sickness, and he happened to die of it, it would be money in our pockets."
Craven looked startled, and his sallow face betrayed by its pallor his inward disturbance.
"That is absurd," he said. "There is no chance of that here. If the boy should die I shouldn't mourn much, but he may live to eighty. There's not much chance of any pestilence reaching this town."
"Perhaps so," said the other, shrugging his shoulders, "but then this little village isn't the whole world."
"You seem to have some plan to propose," said Mr. Craven, eagerly. "What is it?"
"I propose," said Sharpley, "that you send the boy to Europe with me."
"To Europe?"
"Yes; on a traveling tour, for his education, improvement, anything. Only send him under my paternal care, and—possibly he might never come back."