ught of fraud. Montreuil perceived
that I was not yet wholly his, and his next plan was to remove me from
a spot where I might check his measures. He persuaded me to travel for a
few weeks. "On your return," said he, "consider Isora yours; meanwhile,
let change of scene beguile suspense." I was passive in his hands, and I
went whither he directed.

Let me be brief here on the black fraud that ensued. Among the other
arts of Jean Desmarais, was that of copying exactly any handwriting. He
was then in London, in your service. Montrenil sent for him to come to
the neighbourhood of Devereux Court. Meanwhile, the priest had procured
from the notary who had drawn up, and who now possessed, the will of my
unsuspecting uncle, that document. The notary had been long known
to, and sometimes politically employed by, Montreuil, for he was
half-brother to that Oswald, whom I have before mentioned as the early
comrade of the priest and Desmarais. This circumstance, it is probable,
first induced Montreuil to contemplate the plan of a substituted will.
Before Desmarais arrived, in order to copy those parts of the will which
my uncle's humour had led him to write in his own hand, you, alarmed
by a letter from my uncle, came to the Court, and on the same day Sir
William (taken ill the preceding evening) died. Between that day and the
one on which the funeral occurred the will was copied by Desmarais; only
Gerald's name was substituted for yours, and the forty thousand pounds
left to him--a sum equal to that bestowed on myself--was cut down into a
legacy of twenty thousand pounds to you. Less than this Montreuil dared
not insert as the bequest to you: and it is possible that the same
regard to probabilities prevented all mention of himself in the
substituted will. This was all the alteration made. My uncle's writing
was copied exactly; and, save the departure from his apparent intentions
in your favour, I believe not a particle in the effected fraud was
calculated to excite suspicion. Immediately on the reading of the will,
Montreuil repaired to me and confessed what had taken place.

"Aubrey," he said, "I have done this for your sake partly; but I
have had a much higher end in view than even your happiness or my
affectionate wishes to promote it. I live solely for one object,--the
aggrandizement of that holy order to which I belong; the schemes of that
order are devoted only to the interests of Heaven, and by serving them
I serve Heaven