solved to subdue my own emotions, and interpose no longer between
Isora and yourself. Full of this determination, and utterly melted
towards you, I wrote you a long letter; such as we would have written
to each other in our first youth. Two days after that letter all my new
purposes were swept away, and the whole soil of evil thoughts which they
had covered, not destroyed, rose again as the tide flowed from it, black
and rugged as before.

The very night on which I had writ that letter, came Montreuil secretly
to my chamber. He had been accustomed to visit Gerald by stealth and
at sudden moments; and there was something almost supernatural in the
manner in which he seemed to pass from place to place, unmolested and
unseen. He had now conceived a villanous project; and he had visited
Devereux Court in order to ascertain the likelihood of its success;
he there found that it was necessary to involve me in his scheme. My
uncle's physician had said privately that Sir William could not live
many months longer. Either from Gerald or my mother Montreuil learned
this fact; and he was resolved, if possible, that, the family estates
should not glide from all chance of his influence over them into your
possession. Montreuil was literally as poor as the rigid law of his
order enjoins its disciples to be; all his schemes required the disposal
of large sums, and in no private source could he hope for such pecuniary
power as he was likely to find in the coffers of any member of our
family, yourself only excepted. It was this man's boast to want, and
yet to command, all things; and he was now determined that if any craft,
resolution, or guilt could occasion the transfer of my uncle's wealth
from you to Gerald or to myself, it should not be wanting.

Now, then, he found the advantage of the dissensions with each other
which he had either sown or mellowed in our breasts. He came to turn
those wrathful thoughts which when he last saw me I had expressed
towards you to the favor and success of his design. He found my mind
strangely altered, but he affected to applaud the change. He questioned
me respecting my uncle's health, and I told him what had really
occurred; namely, that my uncle had on the preceding day read over to me
some part of a will which he had just made, and in which the vast bulk
of his property was bequeathed to you. At this news Montreuil must have
perceived at once the necessity of winning my consent to his project;
for,