The requisites of a successful villain are manifold. The toughened conscience, the ready wit, the sage experience, the mind tutored, like Iago, in all qualities of human dealing,--all these, in some reasonable measure, Vinal had; but he miserably lacked the vulgar, but no less needful requisite of a sound bodily fibre to support the workings of his brain. His mind was a good lever with a feeble fulcrum; a gun mounted on a tottering rampart. When every breath of emotion that touches the fine-strung organism quivers along the electric chord to the brain, kindling there strange perturbations, then philosophy must lower her tone, and stoicism itself must soon confess that its only resource is to avoid the enemy with whom it cannot cope. Vinal was but ill fitted to act the part he had undertaken. The excitements of villany were too much for him. Peace of mind was as needful to him as food and drink. He had been battling all his life against what he imagined to be a defect of his mental forces, but which had, in the main, no deeper root than in the sensitiveness of his bodily constitution. In prudence and common sense, he was bound to seek asylum in that blissful serenity, that benignant calm, said to be the unfailing attendant on piety and good works. Never did Nature give a sharper hint than she gave to Vinal to eschew evil courses, and leaving rascality to tougher nerves, to tread the placid paths of virtue and discretion. Vinal saw fit to disregard the hint, and the consequences became somewhat grievous. While his intrigue was in progress, his nerves had given him no great trouble. Hate and jealousy absorbed him. He was steadfast in his purpose to get rid of his rival. But now that the mine was laid, and the match lighted, a change began to come upon him. It was his maiden felony; his first _debut_ in the distinct character of a scoundrel; and, though his conscience was none of the liveliest, it sufficed to visit him with some qualms. Anxieties, doubts, fears, began to prey upon him; sleep failed him; his nerves were set more and more on edge; in short, body and mind, mutually acting on each other, were fast bringing him to a state quite adverse to the maxims of his philosophy. When a sophomore in college, his favorite reading had been Foster's Essay on Decision of Character, and he had aspired to realize in his own person the type of character therein set forth; the man of steel, who, in his firm march towards his ends, knows neither doubts, nor waverings, nor relentings. Of this ideal he was now falling lamentably short; and as, at two o'clock in the morning, he rose from his restless bed, and paced his chamber to and fro, vainly upbraiding his weakness, and struggling to reason down the rebellious vibration of his nerves, he was any thing but the inexorable hero of his boyish fancy.