Swinton's triumph seemed complete.
He already had a title, which no one could take from him--not even he
who had bestowed it.
He possessed both the patent and parchments of nobility; and he intended
taking care of them. But he still wanted fortune; and this seemed now
before him. Julia Girdwood had consented to become his wife, with a
dower of 50,000 pounds, and the expectation of as many thousands more!
It had been a rare run of luck, or rather a chapter of cunning--subtle
as fiendish.
But it was not yet complete. The marriage remained to be solemnised.
And when solemnised, what then?
The sequel was still in doubt, and full of darkness. It was darkened by
dangers, and fraught with fears.
If Fan should prove untrue? True to herself but untrue to him?
Supposing her to become stirred with an instinct of opposition to this
last great dishonour, and forbid the banns? She might act so at the
eleventh hour; and then to him, disappointment, disgrace, ruin!
But he had no great fear of this. He felt pretty sure she would
continue a consenting party, and permit his nefarious scheme to be
consummated. But then? And what then?
She would hold over him a power he had reason to dread--a very sword of
Damocles!
He would have to share with her the ill-gotten booty--he knew her well
enough for this--submit to her will in everything, for he knew also that
she had a will--now that she was re-established on the ride of Rotten
Row as one of its prettiest horse-breakers.
There was something, beside the thought of Fan's reclaiming him, that
vexed him far more than the fear of any mulct. He would be willing to
bleed black-mail to any amount convenient--even to the half of Julia
Girdwood's fortune, to insure his past wife keeping quiet for ever.
Strange to say, he had grown to care little for the money; though it may
not appear strange when the cause is declared.
It will only seem so, considering the character of the man. Wicked as
Swinton was, he had fallen madly in love with Julia Girdwood--madly and
desperately.
And now on the eve of possessing her, to hold that possession as by a
thread, that might be cut at any moment by caprice.
And that caprice the will of an injured wife! No wonder the wretch saw
in his future a thorny entanglement--a path, if bestrewed with flowers,
beset also by death's-heads and skeletons!
Fan had helped him in his scheme for acquiring an almost fabulous
fortune; at a touch she could destroy it.
"By heaven! _she shall not_!" was the reflection that came forth from
his lips as he stood smoking a cigar, and speculating on the feared
future. Assisted in conception by that same cigar, and before it was
smoked to a stump, he had contrived a plan to secure him against his
wife's future interference in whatever way it might be exerted.
His scheme of bigamy was scarce guilt, compared with that now begotten
in his brain.
He was standing upon the edge of the canal, whose steep bank formed the
back inclosure of his garden. The tow-path was on the other side, so
that the aqueous chasm yawned almost directly under his feet.
The sight of it was suggestive. He knew it was deep. He saw it was
turbid, and not likely to tell tales.
There was a moon coursing through the sky. Her beams, here and there,
fell in bright blotches upon the water. They came slanting through the
shrubbery, showing that it was a young moon, and would soon go down.
It was already dark where he stood in the shadow of a huge laurustinus;
but there was light enough to show that with a fiend's face he was
contemplating the canal.
"It would do!" he muttered to himself; "but not _here_. The _thing_
might be fished up again. Even if it could be made to appear suicide,
there'd be the chance of an identification and connection with me. More
than chance--a dead, damnable certainty.
"That would be damnable! I should have to appear at a coroner's quest
to explain.
"Bah! what use in speculating? Explanation, under the circumstances,
would be simply condemnation.
"Impossible! The thing can't be done _here_!
"But it _can_ be done," he continued; "and in this canal, too. It _has_
been done, no doubt, many a time. Yes, silent sluggard! if you could
but speak, you might tell of many a plunge made into your sluggish
waves, alike by the living and the dead!
"You will suit for my purpose; but not here. I know the place, the very
place--by the Park Road bridge.
"And the time, too--late at night. Some dark night, when the spruce
tradesmen of Wellington Road have gone home to the bosom of their
families.
"Why not this very night?" he asked himself, stepping nervously out from
the laurustinus, and glaring at the moon, whose thin crescent flickered
feebly through cumulus clouds. "Yonder farthing dip will be burnt out
within the hour, and if that sky don't deceive me, we'll have a night
dark as doom. A fog, too, by heavens!" he added, raising himself on
tiptoe, and making survey of the horizon to the east. "Yes! there's no
mistake about that dun cloud coming up from the Isle of Dogs, with the
colour of the Thames mud upon it.
"Why not to-night?" he again asked himself, as if by the question to
strengthen him in his terrible resolve. "The thing can't wait. A day
may spoil everything. If it is to be done, the sooner the better. _It
must be done_!
"Yes, yes; there's fog coming over that sky, if I know aught of London
weather. It will be on before midnight God grant it may stay till the
morning!"
The prayer passing from his lips, in connection with the horrid scheme
in his thoughts, gave an expression to his countenance truly diabolical.
Even his wife, used to see the "ugly" in his face, could not help
noticing it, as he went back into the house--where she had been waiting
for him to go out for a walk.
It was a walk to the Haymarket, to enjoy the luxuries of a set supper in
the Cafe d'Europe, where the "other count," with the Honourable
Geraldine, and one or two friends of similar social standing, had made
appointment to meet them.
It was not the last promenade Swinton intended to take with his beloved
Fan. Before reaching the Haymarket, he had planned another for that
same night, _if it should prove to be a dark one_.