But the last straw was yet to come that should break the back of all his prudent resolves, and that was the meeting with Stella and Lord Leycester in the river-woods, and Lord Leycester's attack on him. That moment--the moment when he lay on the ground looking up at the dark, handsome, angry, and somewhat scornful face of the young peer--Jasper Adelstone registered a vow. He vowed that come what would, by fair means or foul, he would have Stella. He vowed that he would snatch her from the haughty and fiery young lord who had dared to hurl him, Jasper, to the dust and insult him. What love he already possessed for her suddenly sprang up into a fierce flame of jealous passion, and as he rode home to the Rectory he repeated that vow several times, and at once, without the loss of an hour, began to hunt about for some means to fulfill it. He was no fool, this Jasper Adelstone, for all his conceit, and he knew the immense odds against him if Lord Leycester really meant anything by his attention to Stella; he knew what fearful advantages Leycester held--all the Court cards were in his hands. He was handsome, renowned, noble, wealthy--a suitor whom the highest in the land would think twice about before refusing. He almost guessed, too, that Stella already loved Leycester; he had seen her face turned to the young lord--had heard her voice as she spoke to him. He ground his teeth together with vicious rage as he thought of the difference between her way of speaking to him and to Leycester. "But she shall speak to me, look at me like that before the game is over," he swore to himself. "I can afford to wait for my opportunity; it will come, and I shall know how to use it. Curse him! Yes, I am determined now. I will take him from her." It was a bold, audacious resolution; but then Jasper was both bold and audacious in the most dangerous of ways, in the cold, calculating manner of a cunning, unscrupulous man. He was clever--undoubtedly clever; he had been very successful, and had made that success by his own unaided efforts. Already, young as he was, he was beginning to be talked about. When people were in any great difficulty in his branch of the law, they went to him, sure of finding him cool, ready, and capable. His chambers in the inn held a little museum of secrets--secrets about persons of rank and standing, who were supposed to be quite free from such inconvenient things as skeletons in cupboards. People came to him when they were in any social fix; when they owed more money than they could pay; when they wanted a divorce, or were anxious to hush up some secret, whose threatened disclosure involved shame and disgrace, and Jasper Adelstone was always ready with sound advice, and, better still, some subtle scheme or plan. Yes, he was a successful man, and had failed so seldom--almost never--that he felt he could be confident in this matter, too.