nobody.  Peerage, riches, power, rank—­all these things left Lord David and entered Gwynplaine.  All the castles, parks, forests, town houses, palaces, domains, Josiana included, belonged to Gwynplaine.  And what a climax for Josiana!  What had she now before her?  Illustrious and haughty, a player; beautiful, a monster.  Who could have hoped for this?  The truth was that the joy of Barkilphedro had become enthusiastic.  The most hateful combinations are surpassed by the infernal munificence of the unforeseen.  When reality likes, it works masterpieces.  Barkilphedro found that all his dreams had been nonsense; reality were better.

The change he was about to work would not have seemed less desirable had it been detrimental to him.  Insects exist which are so savagely disinterested that they sting, knowing that to sting is to die.  Barkilphedro was like such vermin.

But this time he had not the merit of being disinterested.  Lord David Dirry-Moir owed him nothing, and Lord Fermain Clancharlie was about to owe him everything.  From being a protege Barkilphedro was about to become a protector.  Protector of whom?  Of a peer of England.  He was going to have a lord of his own, and a lord who would be his creature.  Barkilphedro counted on giving him his first impressions.  His peer would be the morganatic brother-in-law of the queen.  His ugliness would please the queen in the same proportion as it displeased Josiana.  Advancing by such favour, and assuming grave and modest airs, Barkilphedro might become a somebody.  He had always been destined for the church.  He had a vague longing to be a bishop.

Meanwhile he was happy.

Oh, what a great success! and what a deal of useful work had chance accomplished for him!  His vengeance—­for he called it his vengeance—­had been softly brought to him by the waves.  He had not lain in ambush in vain.

He was the rock, Josiana was the waif.  Josiana was about to be dashed against Barkilphedro, to his intense villainous ecstasy.

He was clever in the art of suggestion, which consists in making in the minds of others a little incision into which you put an idea of your own.  Holding himself aloof, and without appearing to mix himself up in the matter, it was he who arranged that Josiana should go to the Green Box and see Gwynplaine.  It could do no harm.  The appearance of the mountebank, in his low estate, would be a good ingredient in the combination; later on it would season it.

He had quietly prepared everything beforehand.  What he most desired was something unspeakably abrupt.  The work on which he was engaged could only be expressed in these strange words—­the construction of a thunderbolt.

All preliminaries being complete, he had watched till all the necessary legal formalities had been accomplished.  The secret had not oozed out, silence being an element of law.

The confrontation of Hardquanonne with Gwynplaine had taken place.  Barkilphedro had been present.  We have seen the result.