“Look!” he exclaimed. “By Heaven, Miss Wilton is proceeding there. Hasten by the route I have described to you, and when she is seated, steal suddenly upon her so as to startle her, then tell her you are from Mr. Vivian’s aunt, and give her this letter. I know what the result will be--she will faint. I will be on the spot, and the rest is provided for. Quick! quick! follow that path, away with you!” Chewkle, a little bewildered, took the letter and stole cautiously to the spot pointed out to him, while Colonel Mires, with an agitated manner, darted off in a different direction. CHAPTER V.--THE ABDUCTION. Why, man, she is mine own; And I as rich in having such a jewel, As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold. Shakspere. Lester Vane, while he indulged his appetite for profligate pleasures or pursued with pertinacity a revengeful purpose, never lost sight of his personal interest, especially where that interest centred itself upon an object awakening his selfish desire. He had a double motive in desiring to obtain the hand of Flora Wilton. He needed the income she would bring with her, and he coveted her beautiful self. He loved her, so far as he could love anything feminine apart from a lower emotion, intensely, and was, in fact, sufficiently fascinated by her charms to have married her had she been penniless, even if he had neglected and ill-treated her afterwards. As she was circumstanced she was a valuable prize, for she had beauty and riches too. The combination was something rare; no one comprehended or appreciated that fact better than himself. How he would be envied when she was his--fortune and all. He never separated that consideration from the pictures his imagination sketched of the future. He dwelt upon the vision which saw him folding the fair creature to his heart, and placing the fortune she brought to his own credit at his own banker’s. What he had learned and knew respecting Hal Vivian, he treated lightly--contemptuously; nevertheless, the figure of this young “pin-maker” would obtrude itself. Still he brushed the shadowy object from his sight with an impatient sneer, for he had faith in his own attractions; he thought it impossible that a gentle creature so simple, and certainly so impressionable, as Flora could resist him. As yet he had not had a chance to play off upon her his attractions to win her. That odious Indian bore, as he deemed Mires, with his bright, tiger-like eyes, had always during his sojourn at Harleydale intruded himself just as he had brought up his artillery of glances, soft words, and tender _empressement_; and again, at the moment he had devised an excellent plan for flinging his Indian rival, the unexpected presence of Vivian, and the events it precipitated, drove him from the scene.