Then began his attempts to murder her, beginning with the cunning plot the day of the yachting-party when he had adroitly pushed her overboard. Furious was his rage at the failure of this attempt, but other schemes were tried soon, and Providence defeated his malignity until it seemed to him as if the girl bore a charmed life. All the time he was pretending the greatest friendship for her, although secretly thirsting for her fair young life. It was in vain that he tried to throw suspicions on Francis Murray; she scorned them all, and he realized that her life was a constant menace to his liberty. She would never give up the battle until she had won it, but if she were only dead the matter would rest, where she had been advised to leave it--with the long-ago given verdict of the jury and the world. Suddenly came the tragic happening of the moonlight party, and Percy Seabright raved with fury because the winds and waves had spared Italy Vale again, but in the supposed death of Francis Murray he saw his opportunity. It was no wonder that the sailor who had carried to Mrs. Murray the news of her son’s death could never be found. With the preternatural cunning of insanity, Percy Seabright had prepared the confession and, disguised as a rough sailor, delivered it himself. He now believed that Italy would believe Francis Murray guilty, and give up the search. Following upon these events came the return of Mrs. Vale to Boston, reawakening all his sleepless hatred. His call on Mrs. Vale when she had declined to see him was only a blind to hide his wicked intentions. He had already plotted to burn her house that night and destroy both herself and daughter. But for Professor Doepkin’s heroism, he would have succeeded in his malignant designs. It was a most revolting record of crime that the man had written in the stolen diary, little dreaming that it would ever see the light of day until after his death, when, in his love of sensation, it is probable he would have left it to the public. The remaining few paragraphs related to his approaching marriage with his detested fiancée, and were not of interest to the general public. It scarcely needed the testimony of the medical experts who had been summoned in the case to prove Percy Seabright a maniac whose liberty menaced all. An insane asylum would be his prison, and his career of crime was over, but the general public declared that his punishment was too light. They declared that hanging was too good for him, and that he ought to be burned at the stake.