to make us think he was travelling, and prevent our finding where they
keep him. Here it is plain there was a slip in posting the wrong one
first.'

Trepanned, kidnapped, hid away in the crypts of some remote
mad-house--reduced to submission by privation and misery--a case as
desperate as that of a prisoner in the Inquisition. What could be the
motive for this elaborate and hideous fraud? Would it not be a more
convenient course, as well as more merciful to put him to death? The
crime would hardly be greater. Why should he be retained in that ghastly
existence?

Well, if Stanley Lake were at the bottom of this horrid conspiracy, _he_
certainly had a motive in clearing the field of his rival. And then--for
the attorney had all the family settlements present to his mind--there
was this clear motive for prolonging his life, that by the slip in the
will under which Dorcas Brandon inherited, the bulk of her estate would
terminate with the life of Mark Wylder; and this other motive too existed
for retaining him in the house of bondage, that by preventing his
marriage, and his having a family to succeed him, the reversion of his
brother William was reduced to a certainty, and would become a
magnificent investment for Stanley Lake whenever he might choose to
purchase. Upon that purchase, however, the good attorney had cast his
eye. He thought he now began to discern the outlines of a gigantic and
symmetrical villainy emerging through the fog. If this theory were right,
William Wylder's reversion was certain to take effect; and it was
exasperating that the native craft and daring of this inexperienced
captain should forestall so accomplished a man of business as Jos.
Larkin.