He was standing upon the edge of the canal, whose steep bank formed the back inclosure of his garden. The tow-path was on the other side, so that the aqueous chasm yawned almost directly under his feet.

The sight of it was suggestive. He knew it was deep. He saw it was turbid, and not likely to tell tales.

There was a moon coursing through the sky. Her beams, here and there, fell in bright blotches upon the water. They came slanting through the shrubbery, showing that it was a young moon, and would soon go down.

It was already dark where he stood in the shadow of a huge laurustinus; but there was light enough to show that with a fiend's face he was contemplating the canal.

"It would do!" he muttered to himself; "but not _here_. The _thing_ might be fished up again. Even if it could be made to appear suicide, there'd be the chance of an identification and connection with me. More than chance--a dead, damnable certainty.

"That would be damnable! I should have to appear at a coroner's quest to explain.

"Bah! what use in speculating? Explanation, under the circumstances, would be simply condemnation.

"Impossible! The thing can't be done _here_!

"But it _can_ be done," he continued; "and in this canal, too. It _has_ been done, no doubt, many a time. Yes, silent sluggard! if you could but speak, you might tell of many a plunge made into your sluggish waves, alike by the living and the dead!

"You will suit for my purpose; but not here. I know the place, the very place--by the Park Road bridge.

"And the time, too--late at night. Some dark night, when the spruce tradesmen of Wellington Road have gone home to the bosom of their families.

"Why not this very night?" he asked himself, stepping nervously out from the laurustinus, and glaring at the moon, whose thin crescent flickered feebly through cumulus clouds. "Yonder farthing dip will be burnt out within the hour, and if that sky don't deceive me, we'll have a night dark as doom. A fog, too, by heavens!" he added, raising himself on tiptoe, and making survey of the horizon to the east. "Yes! there's no mistake about that dun cloud coming up from the Isle of Dogs, with the colour of the Thames mud upon it.

"Why not to-night?" he again asked himself, as if by the question to strengthen him in his terrible resolve. "The thing can't wait. A day may spoil everything. If it is to be done, the sooner the better. _It must be done_!

"Yes, yes; there's fog coming over that sky, if I know aught of London weather. It will be on before midnight God grant it may stay till the morning!"

The prayer passing from his lips, in connection with the horrid scheme in his thoughts, gave an expression to his countenance truly diabolical.

Even his wife, used to see the "ugly" in his face, could not help noticing it, as he went back into the house--where she had been waiting for him to go out for a walk.

It was a walk to the Haymarket, to enjoy the luxuries of a set supper in the Cafe d'Europe, where the "other count," with the Honourable Geraldine, and one or two friends of similar social standing, had made appointment to meet them.

It was not the last promenade Swinton intended to take with his beloved Fan. Before reaching the Haymarket, he had planned another for that same night, _if it should prove to be a dark one_.

CHAPTER SEVENTY NINE.

A PETIT SOUPER.

The supper was provided by "Kate the coper," who had lately been "in luck"; having netted handsomely on one of her steeds, sold to a young "spoon" she had recently picked up, and who was one of the party.

The "coped" individual was no other than our old friend Frank Scudamore, who, by the absence of his cousin abroad, and her benign influence over him, had of late taken to courses of dissipation.

The supper given by Kate was a sort of return to her friend Fan for the dinner at the McTavish villa; and in sumptuousness was a spread no way inferior.

In point of time it might have been termed a dinner; for it commenced at the early hour of eight.

This was to give opportunity for a quiet rubber of whist to be played afterward, and in which "Spooney," as she called young Scudamore--though not to his face--was expected to be one of the corners.

There was wine of every variety--each of the choicest to be found in the cellars of the cafe. Then came the cards, and continued till Scudamore declared himself cleared out; and then there was carousal.

The mirth was kept up till the guests had got into that condition jocularly called "How come you so?"

It applied alike to male and female. Fan, the Honourable Geraldine, and two other frail daughters of Eve, having indulged in the grape juice as freely as their gentlemen fellow-revellers.

At breaking up, but one of the party seemed firm upon his feet. This was the Count de Valmy.

It was not his habit to be hard-headed; but on this occasion he had preserved himself, and for a purpose.

Busy with their own imbibing, nobody noticed him secretly spilling his liquor into the spittoon, while pretending to "drink fair."

If they had, they might have wondered, but could not have guessed why.

The fiend himself could not have imagined his foul design in thus dodging the drink.

His gay friends, during the early part of the entertainment, had observed his abstraction. The Honourable Geraldine had rallied him upon it. But in due time all had become so mellow, and merry, that no one believed any other could be troubled with depression of spirits.

An outside spectator closely scrutinising the countenance of Mr Swinton might have seen indications of such, as also on his part an effort to conceal it His eyes seemed at times to turn inward, as if his thoughts were there, or anywhere except with his roystering companions.

He had even shown neglectful of his cards; although the pigeon to be plucked was his adversary in the game.

Some powerful or painful reflection must have been causing his absent-mindedness; and it seemed a relief to him when, satiated with carousal, the _convives_ gave tacit consent to a general _debandade_.

There had been eight of the supper party, and four cabs, called to the entrance door of the cafe, received them in assorted couples.

It was as much as most of them could do to get inside; but aided by a brace of Haymarket policemen, with a like number of waiters out of the hotel, they were at length safely stowed, and the cabs drove off.

Each driver obeyed the direction given him, Scudamore escorting home the Honourable Geraldine, or rather the reverse; while Swinton, in charge of his tipsy wife, gave his cabman the order--

"Up the Park Road to Saint John's Wood."

It was spoken, not loudly, but in a low muttered voice, which led the man to think they could not be a married couple.

No matter, so long as he had his fare, along with a little perquisite, which the gentleman gave him.

Swinton's weather prophecy had proved true to a shade. The night was dark as pitch, only of a dun colour on account of the fog.

And this was so thick that late fashionables, riding home in their grand carriages, were preceded each carriage by a pair of linkmen.

Along Piccadilly and all through Mayfair, torches were glaring through the thick vapour; the tongues of their bearers filling the streets with jargon.

Farther on across Oxford Street there were fewer of them; and beyond Portman Square they ceased to be seen altogether--so that the cab, a four-wheeler, containing the Count de Valmy and his countess, crept slowly along Baker Street, its lamps illuminating a circle of scarce six feet around it.

"It will do," said Swinton to himself, craning his neck out of the window, and scrutinising the night.

He had made this reflection before, as, first of his party, he came out on the steps of the Cafe d'Europe.

He did not speak it aloud, though, for that matter, his wife would not have heard him. Not even had he shouted it in her ear. She was asleep in a corner of the cab.