It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which might defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now within his grasp.  He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces:  sometimes at that of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; sometimes at that of the meek-looking, but, no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher; sometimes at that of the dark girl whom he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at that of his much respected uncle, who, of course, could not be allowed to peril the fortunes of his relatives by forming a new connection.  It was a frightful perplexity in which he found himself, because there was no one single life an accident to which would be sufficient to insure the fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property.  If it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one person, there was nothing in Dick’s habits of thought and living to make that a serious difficulty.  He had been so much with lawless people, that a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble.  But if there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered the case.

His Southern blood was getting impatient.  There was enough of the New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and their descendants are liable to.  He lay in his bed, sometimes arranging plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, sometimes getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of considering what object he should select as the one most clearly in his way.  On the whole, there could be no doubt where the most threatening of all his embarrassments lay.  It was in the probable growing relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster.  If it should prove, as it seemed likely, that there was springing up a serious attachment tending to a union between them, he knew what he should do, if he was not quite so sure how he should do it.

There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and which, at any rate, would serve to amuse him.  He could, by a little quiet observation, find out what were the schoolmaster’s habits of life:  whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and under what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few minutes with him might be reckoned on, in case it should be desirable.  He could also very probably learn some facts about Elsie:  whether the young man was in the habit of attending her on her way home from school; whether she stayed about the school-room after the other girls had gone; and any incidental matters of interest which might present themselves.