“I will, dear; I will rest every little while.”

Dalhousie resumed his labor, and, convinced by his wife’s reasoning, he labored more moderately.  While he toils at this apparently hopelessly task, we will return to the night when we left him in the library, after having obtained possession of the secret packet.

The overseer, after leaving the library, was perplexed to determine his future course.  He was in possession of a mighty secret, a secret which involved his employer’s very existence.  The realization of a thousand golden dreams was at hand, and he was resolved, without an over-nice balancing of conscientious scruples, to make the most of the information he had obtained.  There were two methods of procedure open to him, and his perplexity was occasioned by this fact.  In this instance his resolution was not at fault, for the reins were in his own hands.  It was not like hewing a path through the granite barriers of difficulty, against the very frown of destiny.  He imagined that some overruling power had made the path, and invited him to walk in it.

Should he make his fortune by means of the uncle or the niece?  The question of his existence had narrowed itself down to this point.  It was sure, he felt, from one or the other.

Being of a naturally generous disposition, with strong affections, and having not a little of the natural sense of justice in his composition, he was decidedly in favor of permitting the niece to enrich him.  This was his personal preference; but he was sensible of the truth of the axiom, that individual preferences must sometimes be sacrificed to the success of the main object; and, if the circumstances demanded it, he felt able to make the sacrifice.

If he forwarded the packet to its proper destination, the lady would, without doubt, be soon restored to her possessions.  This was the course he preferred, as well as the course which justice and morality demanded.  But, alas! his moral sentiment was not sufficiently developed to make him pause before taking the opposite course, if his present and temporary interest should seem to demand it.  A departure from the strict injunction of conscience is sure to bring misery; and this was doubly true in his case.

The uncle was in actual possession, and he called to mind the old maxim, that “possession is nine points in the law.”  He was unwilling to risk the bright prospects, which had so suddenly opened upon him, on the tenth point.  Fearing that Jaspar’s unscrupulous character would enable him to defeat the heiress, he had not the courage to do his duty and trust Heaven for the reward.

With this view of his position, he reluctantly—­we will do him the justice to say reluctantly—­abandoned the project of restoring the niece to her birthright.  Thus was the great purpose of his life narrowed down to one point, and he retired to his pillow to consider in what manner he should approach Jaspar.