The Devil

That first night after the confession he slept sound and long. In the morning when he woke, feeling refreshed and strengthened, his determination to bring about the interview had assumed an iron firmness, as if all night it had been beaten on the anvil of his thoughts while he lay idle. But he was no nearer to devising a scheme that should give effect to the determination.

Mr. Barradine had said that he was going down to the Abbey to-morrow, or next day, Friday, at latest; and in the course of this Wednesday morning Dale decided that the interview must be delayed. It was impossible up here. It would be much easier to arrange down there. He must wait until Mr. Barradine went down to Hampshire, and go down after him. He could call at the Abbey, where the man would be more accessible than up here; and, by restraining himself, by simulating his usual manner, by lulling the man to a false security, he could lure him out of the house--get him out into the open air, away from his servants, perhaps beyond the gardens and as far off as the park copses. Then when they were alone, they two, at a distance from the possibility of interruption, Dale could drop the mask of subservience, turn upon him, and say "Now--"

No, that would not do. It was all childish. For a thousand obscure reasons it would not do at all.

Then, brooding over his wife's confession--the things she had merely hinted at as well as the things she had explicitly stated--he remembered how in the beginning the wood near Long Ride was their meeting-place, how the man had met her there, and led her slowly beneath the trees to the cottage of the procuress. And then an inspiration came. A note to be sent in his wife's name, as soon as Mr. Barradine got home to the Abbey. "Meet me in the West Gate copse. I want to show my gratitude"--or--"I want to thank you again"--something of that sort. "Meet me at the end of North Ride by the Heronry. I will be there if possible four o'clock to-morrow. If not there to-morrow, I will be there next day. Mavis."

He wrote such a letter, in a hand sufficiently like his wife's. Yes, that would fetch him. The old devil would have no suspicions.

Then a cold shiver ran down his spine. It was a thought rising from the depths, warning him, terrifying him. The note would remain afterward. If Mr. Barradine did not destroy it--and very likely he would not do so--the note would be found afterward. But after what?