“Was it not a clever idea, and cleverly executed?” said Mr. Black triumphantly. “It was a successful conspiracy, Octavia, and to you belongs the credit of its success. You went down to Brighton; you introduced yourself in a novel manner to Sir Harold Wynde; and you followed up the acquaintance with such effect that he offered you marriage. And as that was what you wanted, you married him. You would have made yourself a widow, but that fate saved you the trouble. Two years and six months ago you were a poor widow, unable to marry me because of our mutual poverty. Now you are again a widow, rich, respected, honored throughout Kent, and can marry whom you please. I am as poor as I was three years ago, and yet, Octavia, I know that you prefer me to all other men. Is it not so?” Lady Wynde blushed as she murmured assent. She was essentially bad, being unprincipled and unscrupulous, but she loved Craven Black with her whole heart, and with a fervor that astonished herself. After the death of her first husband, Lady Wynde had first met Craven Black. They had fallen in love with each other, as the phrase goes, at their first meeting. He was a gambler, dissolute--an adventurer, in fact, although his respectable birth and connections prevented the name from attaching to him. He was a widower, and possessed but a scanty settled income; yet, from his nefarious gains at the gambling table, and in other ways, he managed to keep up the appearance of a man of fashion, to keep a private cab and a tiger, chambers at the Albany, and to educate his only son, now a man grown. His gains were, however, precarious, and he declined entering upon marriage with a person even poorer than himself. Lady Wynde, in the days of her first widowhood, had been but little better than an adventuress. It is true that she had a respectable name, high connections, and a home in her aunt’s house in Bloomsbury Square; but she was ambitious of social position, she chafed at her poverty, and had too much worldly wisdom to marry Craven Black in the then state of their fortunes, even had he desired it. When his fertile brain, therefore, formed a scheme by which she could enrich them both by imposing upon a high-minded gentleman, marrying, and then putting him out of her way as if his life were valueless, she hesitated, and finally consented. How she had carried out her share in the foul conspiracy against Sir Harold, the reader knows. “Four thousand pounds a year and a good house are worth serving for,” said Mr. Black meditatively. “I think, however, that we have waited long enough, Octavia. When are you going to marry me?” “Not before September,” declared Lady Wynde decisively. “I must have a magnificent wardrobe. I am so tired of dowdy black. And as I shall have to give up the Wynde family diamonds to the heiress, I must order some jewels for myself. Let us appoint our marriage to take place in October. People will talk if it occurs sooner.” Craven Black smiled cynically.