'and this is Tuesday; I leave the rest to your honor and your heart.'

"'Well, the case is this,' he said, looking at me fixedly, 'she will not
marry me in her own town; we will therefore take a trip elsewhere, but
the difficulty is, I don't know yet where to go. If, however'--and he
leaned on the railing of my desk and looked at me with a searching
glance,--'if you want your money badly you can have it in this way:
There is a small vacant house, distant some miles from her residence,
and thither we could drive at any time. Why could'nt you, robed as a
curate, perform the marriage ceremony, and secure your money? We could
be properly married at any other time, though you are as good a one to
tie the knot as any other.'

"The villain looked at me steadily. He was turning his old power of
fascination to account. What was the whole blighted life of this
unfortunate heiress to the ruin and disgrace that my failure would bring
down on myself, my mother and sisters. I did not hesitate, with this
thought uppermost in my mind.

"'I will do this thing,' I said determinedly, 'whatever it costs me.'

"He directed me accordingly to leave Montreal, the seat of my business,
in the morning and reach the little village in the townships, where his
other victim lived, before noon. We would meet there, he would drive me
out to the parsonage, _pro tem_, and give it a look of habitation before
bringing his bride there. We purchased a few dilapidated pieces of
furniture from neighboring farmers and laid our little plot
successfully. It surprised me to think of him as capable of doing such a
villainous thing, and looking so calm and collected all the time. He
smoked inveterately, and occasionally sang or whistled some careless