"
"That is a bargain," said Monckton, coolly. "I'll be even with him; I
will marry you in his name and in his place."
This puzzled Lucy.
"Why in his name?" said she.
He did not answer.
"Well, never mind the name," said she, "so that it is the right man--and
that is you."
Then Monckton's fertile brain, teeming with villainies, fell to hatching
a new plot more felonious than the last. He would rob the safe, and get
Clifford convicted for the theft; convicted as Bolton, Clifford would
never tell his real name, and Lucy should enter the Cliffords' house with
a certificate of his death and a certificate of his marriage, both
obtained by substitution, and so collar his share of the L20,000, and
off with the real husband to fresh pastures.
Lucy looked puzzled. Hers was not a brain to disentangle such a
monstrous web.
Monckton reflected a moment. "What is the first thing? Let me see. Humph!
I think the first thing is to get married."
"Yes," said Lucy, with an eagerness that contrasted strangely with his
cynical composure, "that is the first thing, and the most
understandable.
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