"You are a fool, Reginald Eversleigh, and an obstinate fool, or you would not harp upon this subject after what I have said. I have told you that the marriage which you fear will never take place."
"How will you prevent it?"
"As easily as I could bring it about, did I choose to do so. Pshaw! my dear boy, the simple, honest people in this world are so many puppets, and it needs but the master-mind to pull the strings."
"If this marriage is not intended to take place, why have you brought about an engagement between Paulina and Douglas?" asked the baronet, in nowise convinced by what his ally had said. "I have my reasons, and good ones, though you are too dull of brain to perceive them," replied Victor, impatiently. "You and your cousin, Douglas Dale, have been fast friends, have you not?"
"We have."
"Listen to me, then. If he were to die without direct heirs you are the only person who would profit by his death; and if he, a young; man, powerful of frame, in robust health, no likely subject for disease, were to die, leaving you owner of ten thousand a year, and were to die while in the habit of holding daily intercourse with you, known to be your friend and companion, is it not just possible that malevolent and suspicious people might drop strange hints as to the cause of his death? They might harp upon your motives for wishing him out of the way. They might dwell upon the fact that you were so much together, and that you had such opportunities—mark me, Reginald, opportunities—for tampering with the one solitary life which stood between you and fortune. They might say all this, might they not?"
"Yes," replied Reginald, in his gloomiest tone, "they might."
"Very well, then, if you take my advice, you will cut your cousin's acquaintance from this time. You will take care to let your friends of the clubs know that he has supplanted you in the affections of the woman you loved, and that you and he are no longer on speaking terms. You will cut him publicly at one of your clubs; so that the fact of the coldness between you may become sufficiently notorious. And when you have done this, you will start for the Continent."
"Go abroad? But why?"
"That is my secret. Remember, you have promised to obey me blindly," answered Victor. "You will go abroad; you will let the world know that you and Douglas Dale are divided by the width of the Channel; you will leave him free to devote himself to the woman he has chosen for his wife; and if, while engaged to her, an untimely fate should overtake this young man—if he, like his elder brother, should be removed from your pathway, the most malicious scandal-monger that ever lived could scarcely say that you had any hand in his fate."