Unfortunately, men will not always take themselves out of the way when, so far as their neighbors are concerned, it would be altogether the most appropriate and graceful and acceptable service they could render.  There was at this particular moment no special reason for believing that the schoolmaster meditated any violence to his own person.  On the contrary, there was good evidence that he was taking some care of himself.  He was looking well and in good spirits, and in the habit of amusing himself and exercising, as if to keep up his standard of health, especially of taking certain evening-walks, before referred to, at an hour when most of the Rockland people had “retired,” or, in vulgar language, “gone to bed.”

Dick Venner settled it, however, in his own mind, that Mr. Bernard Langdon must lay violent hands upon himself.  He even went so far as to determine the precise hour, and the method in which the “rash act,” as it would undoubtedly be called in the next issue of “The Rockland Weekly Universe,” should be committed.  Time,—­this evening. Method,—­asphyxia, by suspension.  It was, unquestionably, taking a great liberty with a man to decide that he should become felo de se without his own consent.  Such, however, was the decision of Mr. Richard Venner with regard to Mr. Bernard Langdon.

If everything went right, then, there would be a coroner’s inquest to-morrow upon what remained of that gentleman, found suspended to the branch of a tree somewhere within a mile of the Apollinean Institute.  The “Weekly Universe” would have a startling paragraph announcing a “SAD EVENT!!!” which had “thrown the town into an intense state of excitement.  Mr. Barnard Langden, a well known teacher at the Apollinean Institute, was found, etc., etc.  The vital spark was extinct.  The motive to the rash act can only be conjectured, but is supposed to be disappointed affection.  The name of an accomplished young lady of the highest respectability and great beauty is mentioned in connection with this melancholy occurrence.”

Dick Venner was at the tea-table that evening, as usual.—­No, he would take green tea, if she pleased,—­the same as her father drank.  It would suit his headache better.—­Nothing,—­he was much obliged to her.  He would help himself,—­which he did in a little different way from common, naturally enough, on account of his headache.  He noticed that Elsie seemed a little nervous while she was rinsing some of the teacups before their removal.

“There’s something going on in that witch’s head;” he said to himself.  “I know her,—­she’d be savage now, if she hadn’t got some trick in hand.  Let’s see how she looks to-morrow!”