In the morning he saw clearer.  “Don’t quarrel with her.  Destroy him.”  He saw this as plainly as if it was written.

He wrote Grace a few sad lines, to say that of course he submitted to her will.  The letter ended thus:  “Since I can do nothing to please you, let me suffer to please you:  even that is something.”

(This letter brought the tears to Grace’s eyes, and she pitied and esteemed the writer.)

He put on a plain suit, and drove into Hillsborough, burning with wild ideas of vengeance.  He had no idea what he should do; but he was resolved to do something.  He felt capable of assassinating Little with his own hand.

I should be sorry to gain any sympathy for him; but it is only fair the reader should understand that he felt deeply aggrieved, and that we should all feel aggrieved under similar circumstances.  Priority is a title, all the world over; and he had been the lady’s lover first, had been encouraged, and supplanted.

Longing to wound, but not knowing how to strike, he wandered about the town, and went into several factories, and talked to some of the men, and contrived to bring the conversation round to Little, and learn what he was doing.  But he gathered no information of any use to him.  Then he went to Grotait’s place, and tried to pump him.  That sagacious man thought this odd, and immediately coupled this with his previous denunciation of Little, and drew him on.

Coventry was too much under the influence of passion to be quite master of himself that day; and he betrayed to this other Machiavel that he wished ill to Henry Little.  As soon as he had thoroughly ascertained this, Grotrait turned coolly on him, and said, “I am sorry Mr. Little has got enemies; for he and his partner talk of building a new factory, and that will be a good thing for us:  take a score of saw-grinders off the box.”  Then Coventry saw he had made a mistake, and left “The Cutlers’ Arms” abruptly.

Next day he took a lodging in the town, and went about groping for information, and hunting for a man whose face he knew, but not his name.  He learned all about Bolt and Little’s vain endeavor to build, and went and saw the place, and the condemned bricks.  The sight gratified him.  He visited every saw-grinder’s place he could hear of; and, at last, he fell in with Sam Cole, and recognized him at once.  That worthy affected not to know him, and went on grinding a big saw.  Coventry stepped up to him, and said in his ear, “I want to speak with you.  Make an appointment.”

Cole looked rather sulky and reluctant at being drawn from his obscurity.  However, he named a low public-house in a back slum, and there these two met that night, and for greater privacy were soon seated in a place bigger than a box and smaller than a room with discolored walls, and a rough wooden table before them splashed with beer.  It looked the very den to hatch villainy in, and drink poison to its success.