WYLDER'S HAJVD.
351
On finishing the letter, Stanley rose quickly to his feet.
His excitement was too intense for foul terms, or even
blasphemy. With the edge of his nether lip nipped in
his teeth, and his clenched hands in his pockets, he walked
through the forest trees to the park, and in its solitudes
hurried onward as if his life depended on his speed. Grad-
ually he recovered his self-possession. He sat down un-
der the shade of a knot of beech trees, overlooking that
ill-omened tarn, which we have often mentioned, upon a
linchen-stained rock, his chin resting on his clenched hand)
his elbow on his knee, and the heel of his other foot
stamping out bits of the short, green sod.
"That d—d girl deserves to be shot for her treachery,"
was the first sentence that broke from his white lips.
The Captain's plans were not working by any means so
smoothly as he had expected. That sudden stab from Jos
Larkin, whom he always despised, and now hated — whom
he believed to be a fifth-rate, pluckless rogue, without
audacity, without invention; whom he was on the point of
tripping up, that he should have turned short and garotted
the gallant Captain, was a provoking turn of fortune.
That when a dire necessity subjugated his will, his con-
tempt, his rage, and he inwardly decided that the attor-
ney's extortion must be submitted to, his wife — whom he
never made any account of in the transaction, whom he
reckoned carelessly on turning about as he pleased, by a
few compliments and cajoleries — should have started up,
cold and inflexible as marble, in his path, to forbid the
payment of the black mail, and expose him to the unascer-
tained and formidable consequences of Dutton's story, and
the disappointed attorney's vengeance — was another
stroke of luck which took him altogether by suprise.
And to crown all, Miss Radie had grown tired of keep-
ing her own secret, and must needs bring to light the