d against
accidents.

For the first time, he took certain precautions with reference to his
diet, such as were quite alien to his common habits. On coming to the
dinner-table, that day, he complained of headache, took but little food,
and refused the cup of coffee which Elsie offered him, saying that it
did not agree with him when he had these attacks.

Here was a new complication. Obviously enough, he could not live in this
way, suspecting everything but plain bread and water, and hardly feeling
safe in meddling with them. Not only had this school-keeping wretch come
between him and the scheme by which he was to secure his future fortune,
but his image had so infected his cousin's mind that she was ready to
try on him some of those tricks which, as he had heard hinted in the
village, she had once before put in practice upon a person who had
become odious to her.

Something must be done, and at once, to meet the double necessities of
this case. Every day, while the young girl was in these relations with
the young man, was only making matters worse. They could exchange words
and looks, they could arrange private interviews, they would be stooping
together over the same book, her hair touching his cheek, her breath
mingling with his, all the magnetic attractions drawing them together
with strange, invisible effluences. As her passion for the schoolmaster
increased, her dislike to him, her cousin, would grow with it, and all
his dangers would be multiplied. It was a fearful point he had, reached.
He was tempted at one moment to give up all his plans and to disappear
suddenly from the place, leaving with the schoolmaster, who had
come between him and his object, an anonymous token of his personal
sentiments which would be remembered a good while in the history of the
town of Rockland. This was but a momentary thought; the great Dudley
property could not be given up in that way.

Something must happen at once to break up all this order of things. He
could think of but one Providential event adequate to the emergency,--an
event foreshadowed by various recent circumstances, but hitherto
floating in his mind only as a possibility. Its occurrence would at once
change the course of Elsie's feelings, providing her with something to
think of besides mischief, and remove the accursed obstacle which
was thwarting all his own projects. Every possible motive, then,--his
interest, his jealousy, his longing for revenge, and now his f