Bunning-Ford's horse was still standing outside the house.

"He must be dealt with soon," he muttered.

And in those words was concentrated a world of hate and cruel purpose.

Who shall say of what a man's disposition is composed? Who shall
penetrate those complex feelings which go to make a man what his secret
consciousness knows himself to be? Not even the man himself can tell the
why and wherefore of his passions and motives. It is a matter beyond the
human ken. It is a matter which neither science nor learning can tell us
of. Verner Lablache was possessed of all that prosperity could give him.
He was wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and no pleasure which money
could buy was beyond his reach. He knew, only too well, that when the
moment came, and he wished it, he could set out for any of the great
centers of fashion and society, and there purchase for himself a wife
who would fulfill the requirements of the most fastidious. In his own
arrogant mind he went further, and protested that he could choose whom
he would and she would be his. But this method he set aside as too
simple, and, instead, had decided to select for his wife a girl whom he
had watched grow up to womanhood from the first day that she had opened
her great, wondering eyes upon the world. And thus far he had been
thwarted. All his wealth went for nothing. The whim of this girl he had
chosen was more powerful in this matter than was gold--the gold he
loved. But Lablache was not the man to sit down and admit of defeat; he
meant to marry Joaquina Allandale willy-nilly. Love was impossible to
such a man as he. He had conceived an absorbing passion for her, it is
true, but love--as it is generally understood--no. He was not a young
man--the victim of a passion, fierce but transient. He was matured in
all respects--in mind and body. His passion was lasting, if impure, and
he meant to take to himself the girl-wife. Nothing should stand in his
way.

He turned back to his desk, but not to work.

In the meantime the object of his forcible attentions was holding an
interesting _tete-a-tete_ with the man against whom he fostered an evil
purpose.

Jacky was seated at a table in the pleasant sitting-room of her uncle's
house. Spread out before her were several open stock books, from which
she was endeavoring to estimate the probable number of "beeves" which
the early spring would produce. This was a task which she always liked
to do herself before the rou