degrees, sympathy in political matters and old recollections of sportive,
careless boyhood cemented the intimacy into a more familiar bond than the
sectarian had contracted really with any of his late associates.

Lucretia regarded this growing friendship with great uneasiness; the
uneasiness increased to alarm when one day, in the presence of Ardworth,
Braddell, writhing with a sudden spasm, said: "I cannot account for these
strange seizures; I think verily I am poisoned!" and his dull eye rested
on Lucretia's pallid brow. She was unusually thoughtful for some days
after this remark; and one morning she informed her husband that she had
received the intelligence that a relation, from whom she had pecuniary
expectations, was dangerously ill, and requested his permission to visit
this sick kinsman, who dwelt in a distant county. Braddell's eyes
brightened at the thought of her absence; with little further questioning
he consented; and Lucretia, sure perhaps that the barb was in the side of
her victim, and reckoning, it may be, on greater freedom from suspicion
if her husband died in her absence, left the house. It was, indeed, to
the neighbourhood of her kindred that she went. In a private
conversation with Ardworth, when questioning him of his news of the
present possessor of Laughton, he had informed her that he had heard
accidentally that Vernon's two sons (Percival was not then born) were
sickly; and she went into Hampshire secretly and unknown, to see what
were really the chances that her son might yet become the lord of her
lost inheritance.

During this absence, Braddell, now gloomily aware that his days were
numbered, resolved to put into practice the idea long contemplated, and
even less favoured by his spite than justified by the genuine convictions
of his conscience. Whatever his faults, sincere at least in his
religious belief, he might well look with dread to the prospect of the