shall certainly be in town next month at farthest, and that he meditates,
immediately on his arrival, transferring the legacy from the Bank of
England to an excellent mortgage of which he has heard. Were it not for
this scheme of ours, nothing would be left for me but flight and exile."

"A month,--that is a long time. Do you think, now that my son is found,
and that son like John Ardworth (for there can be no doubt that my
surmise was right), with genius to make station the pedestal to the power
I dreamed of in my youth, but which my sex forbade me to attain,--do you
think I will keep him a month from his inheritance? Before the month is
out, you shall replace what you have taken, and buy your trustee's
silence, if need be, either from the sums you have insured, or from the
rents of Laughton."

"Lucretia," said Varney, whose fresh colours had grown livid, "what is to
be done must be done at once. Percival St. John has heard from his
mother. Attend." And Varney rapidly related the questions St. John had
put to him, the dreaded arrival of Captain Greville, the danger of so
keen an observer, the necessity, at all events, of abridging their visit,
the urgency of hastening the catastrophe to its close.

Lucretia listened in ominous and steadfast silence.

"But," she said at last, "you have persuaded St. John to give this man
the meeting in London,--to put off his visit for the time. St. John will
return to us to-morrow. Well, and if he finds his Helen is no more! Two
nights ago I, for the first time, mingled in the morning draught that
which has no antidote and no cure. This night two drops more, and St.
John will return to find that Death is in the house before him. And then
for himself,--the sole remaining barrier between my son and this