which, though most unwelcome to us of all, I had wellnigh forgotten, may
be adopted. She may come to England, and in order to judge her son's
choice with her own eyes, may withdraw Helen from your roof to hers. At
all events, delays are dangerous,--dangerous, putting aside my personal
interest, and regarding only your own object,--may bring to our acts new
and searching eyes; may cut us off from the habitual presence either of
Percival or Helen, or both; or surround them, at the first breath of
illness, with prying friends and formidable precautions. The birds now
are in our hands. Why then open the cage and bid them fly, in order to
spread the net? This morning all the final documents with the Insurance
Companies are completed. It remains for me but to pay the first
quarterly premiums. For that I think I am prepared, without drawing
further on your hoards or my own scanty resources, which Grabman will
take care to drain fast enough."

"And Percival St. John?" said Madame Dalibard. "We want no idle
sacrifices. If my son be not found, we need not that boy's ghost amongst
those who haunt us."

"Surely not," said Varney; "and for my part, he may be more useful to me
alive than dead. There is no insurance on his life, and a rich friend
(credulous greenhorn that he is!) is scarcely of that flock of geese
which it were wise to slay from the mere hope of a golden egg. Percival
St. John is your victim, not mine; not till you give the order would I
lift a finger to harm him."

"Yes, let him live, unless my son be found to me," said Madame Dalibard,
almost exultingly,--"let him live to forget yon fair-faced fool, leaning
now, see you, so delightedly on his arm, and fancying eternity in the
hollow vows of love; let him live to wrong and abandon her by