one to whom those millions were provisionally bequeathed, when he was one whom Mistrial--justly or unjustly, it matters not--fancied and believed was plotting for them; to gain them, not only through him, but through his unwitting, unintentional agency, through an act which, so soon as he learned its purport, all his life through he would regret and curse;--no, that were indeed a revenge and a reparation too. And as he thought of it there entered his eyes a look perplexing and enervating--that look which demons share with sphinxes and the damned. III. During the two years which Mistrial had passed in the society of his wife, opportunities of studying her there had been in plenty. He knew her to be docile and headstrong; weak, if at all, but with that weakness that comes of lassitude; violent when provoked, prone to forgive, sensitive, impulsive, yet obdurate; in brief, the type of woman that may be entreated, but never coerced. He knew her faults so well he could have enumerated them one after the other on his finger-tips: her qualities, however, had impressed him less; it may be that he had accepted them as a matter of course. He was aware that she was honest; he had noticed that she was capable of much self-sacrifice; of other characteristics he had given little heed. It goes without the telling, that in regard to what is known as jealousy he had not suffered even an evanescent disquietude. And that night and during the morning that followed, as he occupied himself in nursing the idea which had visited him on horseback, that particular fact occurred to him more than once. But one does not need to be a conspirator to understand that the steadiest virtue is as susceptible of vice as iron is of rust. Justine had announced that her cousin was still in love with her; she had announced with equal distinctness that she recognized her own mistake; while for himself he was convinced that she no longer cared. To these things he added certain deductions which his experience of men and women permitted him to draw; and had the result they presented been made to order, it could not have fitted more perfectly into the scheme which he had devised. It was then high noon. Through the window came the irresistible breath of a rose in bloom. As he left the house it surrounded him in the street. He smiled a greeting at it. "I have spring in my favor," he mused, and presently boarded a car. The principles of successful enterprise may be summarized as consisting of a minute regard for details, and an apparent absence of zeal. Mistrial's many mistakes had taught him the one and trained him in the other. When the car he had taken reached the Gilsey House, he alighted, hailed a four-wheeler, stationed it in such a manner that it commanded a view of the adjacent street, coached the driver in regard to a signal he might give, entered the cab, lit a cigarette, and prepared to wait.