"That is well; Silas, lose no time in turning the fellow from your doors, and let me be the first to hear of his dismissal. I shall not grudge you your reward."
As Augustus Horton left the office he once more flung a sinister glance at the articled clerk; but this time there was triumph as well as hatred in the flash of the planter's eye.
As he glanced at Paul Lisimon the glitter of some gold ornaments hanging to the Mexican's watch chain caught his eye. Amongst these was an oval locket, of dead gold, ornamented with two initials in purple enamel.
The planter passed so close to Paul that he was enabled to distinguish these initials.
They were a C and an M.
"So!" he muttered, as he mounted the thorough-bred Arabian waiting him at the door of Silas Craig's house, "He wears a locket inscribed with her initials—a locket containing her portrait, no doubt. She loved him, then; but by the blue sky above me, she shall be taught ere long to despise and loathe him."
Silas Craig was not long in putting his foul plot into execution.
In order to carry it out, he had recourse to a plan as subtle as it was diabolical.
The lawyer's private office communicated, as the reader is aware, with an outer apartment occupied by clerks.
There was but this one door of communication between the two rooms, and there was no other visible mode of entering the inner office.