"By the way, I ought to acknowledge that you were right, and I was wrong, the other day. It is not the first time that man's reason has had to admit the superior correctness, as well as quickness, of woman's intuition."
Miss Ferrars looked both pleased and puzzled. "It is very good of you to say so," she answered, simpering;—"but really, I can't think what you allude to."
"When you called at my office, a few days ago," explained the doctor, "you did me the honor to confide to me your impressions with regard to my friends, Miss Lyte and Mr. Arling. I thought you were mistaken, and told you so. It turns out, however, that the mistake was on my part, not yours. I was really blind—not wilfully so, as you had the charity to suppose. I mention the matter the more readily because it must soon be patent to everybody. Good morning."
And without waiting for a reply, Doctor Remy courteously lifted his hat, and went his way, with a curious smile on his lips.
"That last intimation ensures speed," said he to himself. "Miss Ferrars will do her best to be beforehand with the news. Before to-morrow morning, it will be known throughout the town. Then, I can easily manage so that it shall reach the Major's ears, and—by the help of my loving commentary—produce the desired effect. Astra must be gotten out of the way, for the present, at least. So must Arling; last night's business convinced me that he is more dangerous than I imagined. The Major deceives himself, but he does not deceive me; his bitterness towards his nephew is nothing more than piqued and smothered affection,—affection undergoing fermentation, as it were, and certain to work itself clear and sweet, in time. If Arling remains in the neighborhood, the Major will soon be seizing upon some pretext for a reconciliation. Failing of that, Miss Carice is certain to inherit his estate; just because he wooed—and did not win—her mother, some twenty-five or thirty years ago! No doubt, a marriage between the two would suit him exactly, if he once got hold of the idea. Yes, Arling must be gotten rid of. But how?"
He bent his brows moodily. Some expedient, apparently, soon suggested itself to him, and was immediately rejected with a shake of the head.
"No, not that way," he muttered. "I'm determined against actual, point-blank crime, so called,—except as a last resource. Besides, it is not necessary; I only want to get rid of him until the Major is dead, and Miss Carice is my wife. There must be some way to dispose of him, by lawful means, if I could only hit upon it! Really, if there were a Devil, as some people believe, he would strain a point now in my favor! At all events, I think I see my way clear with Astra."
He was silent, for an instant; his brow grew sombre with unwonted regret.
"Poor Astra!" he murmured, as he drove into the cathedral-like gloom of the far-stretching pine barren,—"I am really loath to give her up! But her chance of the Hall, I see now, is not worth a picayune. And it won't do to trust to the possibility of substituting a manufactured will for the real one, as long as I cannot find out where the latter is deposited. The Major was very close-mouthed about that matter. No, Miss Carice is my safest resort. Yet Astra would suit me much better, on the whole." And once again, looking absently up the long, columned vista of the narrow road, he murmured regretfully;—
"Poor Astra!"