to future
rewards and punishments is to give them credit for a condition of
mind to which they have never risen. Such a one was probably Mr.
Greenwood; but nevertheless he feared something when this idea
respecting Lord Hampstead presented itself to him. It was as is some
boggy-bo to a child, some half-belief in a spectre to a nervous
woman, some dread of undefined evil to an imaginative but melancholy
man. He did not think that by meditating such a deed, by hardening
his heart to the necessary resolution, by steeling himself up to its
perpetration, he would bring himself into a condition unfitted for
a life of bliss. His thoughts did not take any such direction. But
though there might be no punishment in this world,--even though there
were to be no other world in which punishment could come,--still
something of evil would surely fall upon him. The convictions of the
world since the days of Cain have all gone in that direction. It was
thus that he allowed himself to be cowed, and to be made to declare
to himself again and again that the project must be abandoned.

But "the cat i' the adage" succeeded so far on the Tuesday in getting
the better of his scruples, that he absolutely did form a plot.
He did not as yet quite see his way to that security which would
be indispensable;--but he did form a plot. Then came the bitter
reflection that what he would do would be done for the benefit of
others rather than his own. What would Lord Frederic know of his
benefactor when he should come to the throne--as in such case he
would do--as Marquis of Kingsbury? Lord Frederic would give him no
thanks, even were he to know it,--which of course could never be
the case. And why had not that woman assisted him,--she who had
instigated him to the doing of the deed? "For Banquo's issue have I
filed my mind," he said to himself over and over again, not, however,
in truth thinking of the deed with any of the true remorse to which
Macbeth was a prey. The "filing of his mind" only occurred to him
because the words were otherwise apt. Would she even be grateful when
she should tell herself,--as she surely would do,--that the deed had
been done by the partner of her confidences?

When he thought of the reward which was to come to him in payment of
the intended deed something like a feeling of true conscience did
arise within him. Might it not be the case that even he, callous
as he was to most things, should find himself unable to go down to