When the morning dawned my scheme was complete, and it was a scheme that did honour to my special demon. I would die, but fame and glory should write my epitaph; and dead, I should be remembered by this woman with lifelong sorrow. She shall never be happy; and in remembering me, her soul shall be filled with bitter repentance for the misfortune she brought on me. She shall yearn for me, shed bitter tears for me, and fret away her life in despair. This should be my revenge.
Next morning I said to my wife--"We cannot stay here. Our next year must be spent in travelling in foreign parts, and we shall start for Paris in three days. You had better make arrangements accordingly."
"My arrangements are made, for I have not unpacked my things yet. So everything is at your command," was her answer.
I left her, and drove over to the county town to my solicitor, and told him to borrow as much money on my property as he could possibly get from the financial institutions. As a pretext I told him that I had the intention of buying lands. He advised me to wait, for he had learned for certain that in a year's time Siegfried would have to sell out. His estates were mortgaged over and over, and matters were going very ill with him. If, then, I should add to the million my wife had brought me, the money I had and the money I could at any moment raise on my property, I should be able to purchase the Vernöczy estates.
This was a revelation that for a moment made me hold my breath. It would be something to tear that water-nymph on the Vernöczy crest from over the portals of the château into the mire, and erect the Dumany crest on the front of the proud old castle. But that feeling passed, and with it the temptation. It would be no revenge on her to let her live as mistress on the estates of her forefathers, and, first of all, I craved revenge on her. More than that scoundrel who had betrayed her and then flung her to me, I hated her, Lilith, the tempting devil in the guise of a seraph! But I said to the lawyer, "Very well"--that I would consider about it, and not buy anything at present; but that he should raise the money, all the same, and send it for me to Paris, as well as the funds I had inherited. Perhaps I might have use for the money there--at any rate, he must send it. Then I took the rosewood chest with my wife's dowry, and sent it by mail, and under the usual guarantee, to a well-known banking firm in Brussels as a deposit.
