ad returned from
his short absence with a resolve to risk an attempt which was only not
entirely base by virtue of the passion which inspired it, and it
appeared to him that his stratagem had succeeded. Scruples he had indeed
known, but not at all of the weight they would have possessed for most
men, and this not only because of his reckless determination to win by
any means; his birth and breeding enabled him to accept meanness as
almost a virtue in many of the relations and transactions of life. The
trickery and low cunning of the mercantile world was in his blood; it
would come out when great occasion saw use for it, even in the service
of love. He believed it was leading him to success. Certainly the first
result that he aimed at was assured, and he could not imagine a
subsequent obstacle. He would not have admitted that he was wronging the
man whom he made his tool; if honesty failed under temptation it was
honesty's own look-out. Ten to one he himself would have fallen into
such a trap, in similar circumstances; he was quite free from
pharisaical prejudice; had he not reckoned on mere human nature in
devising his plan? Nor would the result be cruel, for he had it in his
power to repay a hundredfold all temporary pain. There were no limits to
the kindness he was capable of, when once he had Emily for his wife; she
and hers should be overwhelmed with the fruits of his devotion. It was
to no gross or commonplace future that the mill-owner looked forward.
There were things in him of which he was beginning to be conscious,
which would lead him he could not yet see whither. Dunfield was no home
for Emily; he knew it, and felt that he, too, would henceforth have need
of a larger circle of life. He was rich enough, and by transferring his
business to other hands he could become yet richer, gaining freedom at
the same time. No disappointment would be in store for him as in his
former marriage; looking back on that he saw now how boyish he had been,
how easily duped. There was not even the excuse of love.

He held her gained. What choice would she have, with the alternative to
be put before her? It was strange that, in spite of what should have
been sympathetic intelligence, he made a slight account of that love
which, as she told him, she had already bestowed. In fact, he refused to
dwell upon the thought of it; it would have maddened him in earnest. Who
could say? It was very possible she had told him a falsehood; it was