day you receive this; on Wednesday, at farthest. Your last letter implies
blame of my policy with respect to Vernon. Again I say, it is necessary
to amuse my uncle to the last. Before Vernon can advance a claim, there
will be weeping at Laughton. I shall weep, too, perhaps; but there will
be joy in those tears, as well as sorrow,--for then, when I clasp thy
hand, I can murmur, "It is mine at last, and forever!"

Adieu! No, not adieu,--to our meeting, my lover, my beloved! Thy
LUCRETIA.

An hour after Miss Clavering had departed on her visit, Dalibard returned
the letter to his son, the seal seemingly unbroken, and bade him replace
it in the hollow of the tree, but sufficiently in sight to betray itself
to the first that entered. He then communicated the plan he had formed
for its detection,--a plan which would prevent Lucretia ever suspecting
the agency of his son or himself; and this done, he joined Sir Miles in
the gallery. Hitherto, in addition to his other apprehensions in
revealing to the baronet Lucretia's clandestine intimacy with Mainwaring,
Dalibard had shrunk from the thought that the disclosure would lose her
the heritage which had first tempted his avarice or ambition; but now his
jealous and his vindictive passions were aroused, and his whole plan of
strategy was changed. He must crush Lucretia, or she would crush him, as
her threats declared. To ruin her in Sir Miles's eyes, to expel her from
his house, might not, after all, weaken his own position, even with
regard to power over herself. If he remained firmly established at
Laughton, he could affect intercession,--he could delay, at least, any
precipitate union with Mainwaring, by practising on the ambition which he
still saw at work beneath her love; he might become a necessary ally; and
then--why, then, his ironical smile glanced across his lips. But beyond
this, his quick eye saw fair prospects to self-interest: Lucretia