Colin, as he sat alone in the bows, fairly burst out laughing, before he proceeded to consider the wonderful sequel. He would be suspected, would he?... Then how would it come about that it was he, who in the nobility of stainless honour would produce his own mother’s letter, given him by his uncle, in which she announced to her brother that she was married at the British Consulate on the 31st of March? Had he been responsible for that erasure in the Consulate register, to legitimatise his own birth, how, conceivably, could he not only not conceal, but bring forward the very evidence that proved his illegitimacy? Had he tampered with the Consular book, he must have destroyed the letter which invalidated his forgery. But, instead of destroying it, he would produce it.
There was work ahead of him here and intrigue in which Salvatore must play a part. The work, of course, was in itself nothing; the insertion at the top of one of the two letters he owned of just that one figure which he had inserted and erased again in the register was all the manual and material business; a bottle of purple ink and five minutes’ practice would do that. But the intrigue was more difficult. Salvatore must be induced to acquiesce in the fact that the date of the letter announcing Rosina’s marriage was subsequent to that announcing the birth of the twins. That would require thought and circumspection; there must be no false step there.
And all this was but a preliminary manœuvring for the great action whereby, though at the cost of his own legitimacy, he should topple Raymond down from his place, and send him away outcast and penniless, and himself, with Violet for wife, now legal owner of all the wealth and honours of the family, become master of Stanier. She might for the love of him, which he believed was budding in her heart, throw Raymond over and marry him without cognisance of what he had done for her. But he knew, from knowledge of himself, how overmastering the passion for Stanier could be, and it might happen that she would choose Raymond with all that marriage to him meant, and stifle the cry of her love.
In that case (perhaps, indeed, in any case), Colin might find it better to make known to her the whole, namely that on his father’s death she would find herself in a position to contest the succession and claim everything for her own. Which of them, Raymond or himself, would she choose to have for husband in these changed circumstances? She disliked and proposed to tolerate the one for the sake of the great prize of possession; she was devoted to the other, who, so she would learn, had become possessed of the fact on which her ownership was established.