"Ay, indeed, I have," answered Captain Moreton, with a smile; "I have got the means; for, while you were thinking I was doing nothing, I was shrewdly laying out my own plans, by which I have contrived to screw full five hundred pounds out of that terrible miser, Wharton. Was not that somewhat like a _coup?_ With that we can live for some five or six months in Paris--economically, you know, my love--we must not have champagne and oysters every day; but we can do well enough; and before the time is out, the very event we wished to bring about will have happened; otherwise my name is not Moreton. I can see very well how matters are going. He is caught: for the first time in his life really and truly captivated; and, if we but take care to play our game well, he will be married and completely in our power within a few weeks. I know he will never be able to stand that; and there will but be one choice before him, either to buy you off at the highest possible price, or--" "Buy me!" cried the lady; "if he had the diamond mines of Golconda, he could not buy me! If he could coin every drop of blood in his heart into a gold piece, I would see him mind them all to the very last, and then refuse them all with scorn and contempt. No, no, I will bring him to public shame and trial; I will make him a spectacle, have him condemned as a malefactor, break his proud spirit and his hard heart, and then leave him to his misery, as he has left me. For this I have toiled and longed; for this I have saved and scraped, like the veriest miser that ever worshipped Mammon in his lowest shape; for this I saved every sixpence, and lived in self-inflicted poverty and neglect, till I met you, Moreton, in order to hoard enough to keep me, till this revenge could be accomplished; and often, very often since, I have been tempted to curse you for having, by the extravagance you taught and practised, squandered away the very means of obtaining all that I have longed and pined for." "You speak in a very meek and Christian spirit," cried Captain Moreton, with a laugh; "but, nevertheless, I will not quarrel with it, Charlotte; for your revenge would serve my purposes too. If we could but get him to commit himself beyond recall, I am his next heir, you know, my dear; and, therefore, the sooner he goes to heaven or Botany Bay, the better for me--don't you think that we could contrive to get up a very well authenticated report of your death in some of the newspapers, with confirmations of all kinds, so as to leave no doubts in his mind?"