_If anything should happen to the child!_ Dangerous, speculation! In monarchies it is treason even to _imagine_ the death of the sovereign. And it is so with much good reason, since such imaginings often realize themselves. It could not be treason; but it was treachery in Clarence Everage even to imagine the removal of the little child that stood between him and the inheritance of Killcrichtoun. It was not only wrong but perilous for him to do so. But it seemed as if he could not help it. Day and night he brooded over the idea, with a morbid intensity akin to monomania. And there was his poverty, and the pale faces of his poor wife and little girls, to goad him on. And there was that painful computation of pounds, shillings and pence, that agonized straining of his soul to make his meagre wages meet their merest wants. And now the cruel extravagance into which his pride and sensitiveness had betrayed him in paying for that lunch at Véry’s had almost ruined him for this quarter. There was now no possible way in which he could make the two ends meet for the time. And he knew, as only the experienced in such matters can know, and he dreaded as only the proud and sensitive can dread, the troubles that must follow—the degrading squabbles with his landlady, the humiliating apologies to the butcher and the baker—nay, the sight of his wife’s shabby dress and his little daughters’ all but bare feet. And he thought how different all this would be were he the heir of Killcrichtoun, as he should be but for Alexander Lyon’s son. He thus “imagined” the death of the child and the advantages that must accrue to himself in that event. But would he have “compassed” the death of the child for any such advantage? Oh, no! not for Killcrichtoun, or a hundred Killcrichtouns, would he have committed such a crime. But—he was too prone to consider certain facts in the statistics of population, life and death; how it was set down that more than one half the children born, died before they had attained the age of three years. He supposed little Lenny to be about two years and a half old. He wondered whether the child had passed safely through measles, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, and all the other perilous “ills” to which children’s “flesh is heir,” or whether he had yet to encounter all or any of them. He had gathered from Lord Killcrichtoun’s narrative that the child lived with his mother and her friends at the Morley House, and that he was often taken by his nurse to walk in Trafalgar square and its vicinity. And so, morning, noon, and evening, when not engaged in his school duties or with his family, he prowled about the neighborhood, to waylay little Lenny and his nurse, and watch over his health. One day, when no one else was very near, he saw Pina and her charge together, and accosted them. “How do you do, my little man?” he inquired, patting Lenny on the head or rather, the hat. “Me not man—me itty boy,” answered Lenny, staring.