"It's true, true as preaching. You wonder that I should be so willing to help you to get her. Well, I owe her a grudge, I see no other way to get out of your clutches, and I shall put you in the way of making her acquaintance only on condition that if you succeed we share the spoils."
"Agreed. Now for the modus operandi. You tell me her whereabouts and provide me with a letter of introduction, eh?"
"No; on the contrary, you are carefully to conceal the fact that you have the slightest knowledge of me. The introduction must come from quite another quarter. Listen, and I'll communicate the facts and unfold my plan. It has been running in my head for weeks, ever since I heard that the girl was to spend the summer in the North with nobody but an old maiden aunt, half-cracked at that, to keep guard over her; but I couldn't quite make up my mind to it till to-night, for you must see, Tom," he added with a forced laugh, "that it can't be exactly delightful to my family pride to think of bringing such a dissipated fellow as you into the connection."
"Better look at home, lad. But you are right; one such scamp is, or ought to be, all-sufficient for one family."
Arthur said, "Certainly," but winced at the insinuation nevertheless. It was not a pleasant reflection that his vices had brought him down to a level with this man who lived by his wits—or perhaps more correctly speaking, his rascalities—of whose antecedents he knew nothing and whom, with his haughty Southern pride, he thoroughly despised.
But scorn and loathe him as he might in his secret soul, it was necessary that he should be conciliated, because it was now in his power to bring open disgrace and ruin upon his victim. So Arthur went on to explain matters and, with Jackson's assistance, to concoct a plan of getting Elsie and her fortune into their hands.
As he had said, the idea had been in his mind for weeks, yet it was not until that day that he could see clearly how to carry it out. Also, his family pride had stood in the way until the excitement of semi-intoxication and his heavy losses had enabled him to put it aside for the time. To-morrow he would more than half regret the step he was taking, but now he plunged recklessly into the thing with small regard for consequences to himself or others.
"Can you imitate the chirography of others?" he asked.
"Perfectly, if I do say it that shouldn't."
"Then we can manage it. My brother Walter has kept up a correspondence with this niece ever since he left home. In a letter received yesterday she mentions that her father was about leaving her for the rest of the summer. Also that Miss Stanhope, the old aunt she's staying with, was formerly very intimate with Mrs. Waters of this city.