"My proofs are these," answered Margaret, forcing herself to speak quietly. "He acts exactly as a man would act who was personating some one else. He knows the true St. Udo's history to a certain extent, and cleverly acts upon it; but go beyond the part he has rehearsed, and he betrays the most extraordinary confusion. When first I saw him I was astonished at the change which a few months in America had made. The longer I studied him the more palpable became his disguise to my eyes; and I am now morally convinced that my suspicions are well founded."
"All this is nothing," said Mr. Davenport. "You have advanced no proofs, except to show that from the first day of his return you conceived a dislike to him."
"I made him commit himself wholly to-day," continued Margaret, anxiously. "The first time he betrayed his ignorance of the contents of that letter which St. Udo Brand wrote me upon leaving the castle; the second time he was so puzzled by the fastening of the library glass door, that he could not open it. That door, Mr. Davenport, which Mrs. Brand's grandson used exclusively."
"And would you condemn a man upon such accidents of memory as these?"
"Had St. Udo Brand that cowardly glance, that crime-darkened visage, that crawling, scheming softness?" cried Margaret, with flashing eyes. "Ugh! he is a serpent drawing his slimy folds into our midst—he is a travesty on the dead hero of yonder battle-field."
"You did not always think so well of Captain Brand," retorted the lawyer, with another exchange of glances with Gay; "and I should think that seeing him once—and that under circumstances rather damaging to him—you would hardly be capable of judging of his heroism or other good qualities, in comparison with any one."
"I am not deceived," said Margaret; "and, if you will watch this man, you cannot be deceived either."
The executors remained eying each other with a dubious frown.
This charge was leaving a very disagreeable impression on their minds. The physician remarked the gleaming eyes beside him with a speculation as to the sanity of his ward.
The lawyer ruminated over her communication with a speculation as to her honesty.
"Be careful, Miss Walsingham, not to get yourself into trouble," said Mr. Davenport.
"It might prove very damaging to your character to defame the man who was to have shared with you Mrs. Brand's estates."
"Would it not be more damaging to my character and to yours, Mr. Davenport, as retainer of the Brand estates, to allow an impostor a foothold at Seven-Oak Waaste?"
"Fair and softly, madam. He can't have a foothold unless you are pleased to accept him as your husband. Why attempt any exposure at all? Why not suffer his attentions until he proposes, and then dismiss him as if you were dismissing the veritable St. Udo. Be he who he may, he can't gain a foothold after that."
Margaret's face waxed paler.
Gazing in turn at each of the executors she might expect little sympathy from the half cajoling regards of the one, or from the impassive scowl of the other.
"If he is an adventurer, come here with the carefully-prepared plot by which he hopes to win the Brand estates," she said, slowly, "he will not be likely to stop at his efforts because a woman stands in the way. He will have worked too hard and risked too much to be lightly turned from his purpose. He will have weighed well the chances of a refusal. The woman who stands in his way will be removed if she refuses to be his stepping-stone."
"A parcel of moonshine!" cried Davenport, hotly.
"I implore you to believe otherwise. Do you think I would have come to you on mere suspicion? I am perfectly convinced in my own mind, sir."
"But you must convince others as well as yourself. You must bring proofs. Why, we can think nothing but that that ancient pique of yours against the captain has touched your brain, and made you really take up this unworthy suspicion against a man who is the same as ever he was. I see no difference in him, except that he looks the worse for wear."
"Which his hard usage makes very natural," said Dr. Gay.
"You refuse to help me, then?"
"What would you like us to do, Miss Margaret?"
"I would like you to force this man into proving his identity; confront him with such circumstances as must unmask his plot, if he has one; you have the power and I have not."
"I don't see that we are authorized to molest any man upon such crazy foundations as those you have advanced; indeed, I can't consent to take one step of an unfriendly nature against the colonel. I have been a faithful solicitor for the Brands these many years, and it is late in the day to turn against them now. Give it up, Miss Walsingham."
"I shall not give it up," retorted Margaret rising; "if I must work single-handed, I will, but remember, you have left me to battle with a dangerous and desperate foe."
She left the office without another word, and slowly retraced her steps toward Seven-Oak Waaste.
She was imbued with as profound a sense of her own defenseless condition as any woman under the sun.
She invoked the help of her only protectors, and they had indignantly refused to be alarmed. If she would unmask a bold and determined villain, she must do it alone.
"I am going to have a hard struggle," she thought; "and it may be a struggle for my life."
No wonder that she stood still in her walk, to turn this thought about her mind with a horrible earnestness: it took its weird and awful shape from a passing memory of those murderously treacherous eyes which had surely taken her in more than once in the library that morning; it loomed larger and larger as she pondered, and the chill shadow of death seemed to be over her.
"For my life," she repeated, gazing with dilated eyes into the warning future.
Castle Brand appeared grayly before her from among its bare armed oaks; the brown Waaste stretched far and wide, and a black pool lay in a gloomy hallow, deep and inky, as if its stormy face kept impassively calm over secrets of murder and violence.
For a time the natural instinct of self was strong in the heart of the lonely girl; she quailed before the dangers of her course, and almost persuaded herself to turn and fly; but her inborn courage came to her aid; a something in the soul of this naturally weak woman rose in fierce protest against allowing an impostor to triumph; her fears faded away out of sight, as implacable anger succeeded the brief emotion.
"Lethimwear the dead St. Udo's honors?" she ejaculated. "Lethimbe Ethel Brand's heir? No—not while I, the sworn keeper of the wishes of her who was to me a benefactress, can raise a hand to balk him. You wretch! you shall find Margaret Walsingham no coward."
The rattle of a gig aroused her, and she looked round to behold Dr. Gay approaching.
"What are you standing there for, rooted to the spot?" he asked, drawing up beside her. "Are you surveying, or inveighing?"
"The latter term is the most appropriate. I was mentally measuring my courage with that of the subject of our afternoon's consultation."
"Step up beside me; I would like a few words with you. You left us in such a hurry that I felt it necessary to follow you."
She obeyed him, and they leisurely approached the gates.
"Davenport and I have been thinking that it is our duty to warn you how you give wind to this extraordinary suspicion of yours; it may prove embracing, perhaps dangerous for you, and would create a great deal of needless scandal."
"You wish me to be utterly silent on the subject?"
"Well, yes, my dear; it is by far the safest plan."
She pondered deeply for a few minutes.
"I promise to keep my convictions to myself, until I have found such proofs against him as will satisfy you and Mr. Davenport."
"Has Colonel Brand left the castle?" asked the doctor, as the lodge-keeper opened the gates.
"No sir: there he is"—pointing under the trees—"him and his doag. It comed tearing oop from the village like a mad thing, an hour agone, and yelped like a frog until its maister comed to it."
There under the naked trees, kicking up the withered leaves in the little clouds, shuffled the colonel, with head dropped on his breast, and folded arms; so deep in reverie that he seemed unconscious of all outside of his own brain.
Round and round he walked in an idle circle upon the leaf padded park under the naked trees, and the long tan sleuth-hound glided after him with dropped nose and stealthy tread, as if he, too, were tracking game; and a malicious fancy might have suggested that the man was followed by a moral shadow of himself.
"There he lurks," spoke Margaret, with loathing scorn, as they left the lodge behind; "patient, lean sleuth-hound upon the scent, and watching for the moment to spring. Is that the gay and reckless St. Udo Brand—the brave soldier and the idol of women—the man who scorned a presumed fortune-hunter, and left all for love? Does the blood of good Ethel Brand flow in the veins of such a hound as yonder schemer? He would lick the dust of my feet for money—he whom you insult the memory of the Brands by believing in!"
"Assuredly the girl is touched," thought Gay.
They almost drove upon the colonel before he was aware of them, and so noiseless had been their approach that he appeared utterly bewildered with consternation when Gay addressed him.
"A bleak day, colonel."
"Yes, a bleak day, a very bleak day," said the wily voice, while the twitching face slowly got into company order.
"Having a walk about the oaks, sir? Rather desolate-looking at this time of the year."
"Particularly desolate up at the castle, doctor. I was glad to turn out and bear Argus company. Is Miss Walsingham sufficiently wrapped for this cold wind?"
"Oh, I hope so," answered Gay, looking in vain for a reply in Margaret's stern face.
"She has been taking a little drive with me, I picked her up on the road there."
"Little drive," repeated Colonel Brand, with a slightly sarcastic emphasis, "preceded by a little walk. Did you find our friend Davenport at his post my dear lady?"
Margaret started, and turned her flashing eyes upon the smiling interrogator.
"By what unworthy means have you ascertained my movements?" she demanded.
"Why, dear Miss Walsingham, your housekeeper informed me, when I asked her the cause of your abrupt departure from me, that you had gone to see Mr. Davenport."
The girl sat staring at him in dumb indignation. She had communicated her design to no one in the house and the colonel was telling her a lie to her very face. It was perfectly patent to her that he had dogged her footsteps.
"Are you coming up to Castle Brand?" asked Gay, nervously staving off an expected explosion.
"I—think not," answered the colonel, with a glance baleful as dead lights on a grave; "Miss Walsingham evidently is indifferent to my society. Why, do you know, doctor, I came here to-day expecting a delightful afternoon with her in the library, where first we met, and, like the lonely Marguerite of wicked Faust, she melted from my view, and I found but Mephistopheles taunting me at my elbow in the shape of old memories of years which might have been better spent—called up by the associations of the room."
"She's shy yet—she's shy," said the doctor, in a prompting tone. "Ar'n't you, dear?"
It was utterly out of Margaret's power to do anything but look at St. Udo Brand, as represented by the man among the withered leaves, with a cold stare of scorn.
"The bleak wind is injuring Miss Walsingham's complexion," said the sneering voice again. "I will release her from the freezing process, and myself from Paradise. Good-evening."
Dr. Gay drove his impassive ward up to the steps of Castle Brand, and set her down between the griffiths couchant, and she stood forlornly there clinging to his hand.
"I am afraid to stay here alone," she whispered. "Do come and stay with me, dear doctor, until that terrible man is taken away."
"I—I'm afraid Mrs. Gay might object to such an arrangement, dear; she is a person who—who generally objects—who is opposed to leaving her own home under any circumstances."
"I did not think of Mrs. Gay. Well will you please ask Mr. Davenport to come? Will you implore him to come? He has nothing to keep him, and I am so defenseless here."
"I will mention your request, but I think he will say what I feel without saying—it is a pity you left my house the way you did."
With that parting shot, the little doctor bade his adieu, stepped into his gig, and cheerfully drove away.
Oh, this horrible Waaste! Listen how the harsh wind moans over it, and rises into savage shrieks.
The old trees creak and sigh like the surge of an angry sea; the ancient windows rattle in their stone sockets; the ghostly Brands all down the gallery seem to shudder in their massive frames, as if an ominous Present were casting its shadows back to their centuried Past: the face of Ethel, the beautiful, looks down upon the companion she once loved and cherished as if she would say, in the limitless pride of her heart:
"I trust to you, Margaret Walsingham; keep my name pure, or let it die."
The candles flicker and wave in phantom gusts of wind; long shadows flit about with wide-spreading wings; the brain of the lonely girl is peopled with visions of horror.
Let her double-lock her chamber door, or pace in restlessness the echoing halls, Ethel Brand's bequest has come like a curse to poor Margaret.
A note arrived at the castle next morning from Dr. Gay, which stirred her up to feverish excitement, and showed her a speedy crisis.
"My Dear Ward:—I write more for the purpose of giving you time to prepare your answer, and (may I presume it?) to give you a little timely advice as to the nature of your answer, than for the sake of the communication itself."Yesterday, upon leaving you, I had a very momentous interview with Colonel Brand (he returned to Regis with me in the gig), in which he placed himself in the most candid and open manner upon my friendship, and explained to me what he wished to be his future course."After commenting with a great deal of proper feeling upon his former extravagances of life, he said that it was little wonder that a highly organized young lady like Miss Walsingham should feel a distrust of him, and that he was quite conscious of a revulsion of feeling on Miss Walsingham's part which his most heartfelt apologies for his former rudeness could not remove. He then implored me to put him upon a way to do away with the bad impression he had created, so that he might win your affection."'For,' he declared, with tears in his eyes, 'I have learned to love her to distraction: and if I am ever to be anything, her hand must beckon me on.'"His sincerity so invited my sympathy that I was within an ace of disclosing to him your ridiculous suspicion, but upon second thoughts concluded that it would wound him too much. However, I proposed to stand his friend with you; so henceforth look upon me in that light."He then informed me that he desired to win your consent to marry him purely from personal affection, and that if you would only be his wife, he should insist upon having the whole of the Brand estates settled upon you, in case any one might accuse him of mercenary motives. And, in short, he concluded by disclosing to me his determination to end his suspense by proposing to you this evening. I urged upon him that it would be too premature, but he answered, with deep emotion:"'She hates me more and more every day. Let me touch her noble heart by my great love, and she will pity, and in time endure me.'"I don't know whether the course he has marked out will have that effect or not, but this I hope—that you will not turn away your co-heir without due reason."And now for my bit of advice."Weigh well before the evening the possibility of your having been unjust in your suspicions of the man who is going to offer you his hand; if you do conscientiously, you will come to the conclusion that youhavebeen unjust."Then ask yourself if it will be right, or generous, or honorable to dismiss St. Udo Brand from his rightful home and fortune, now that he is willing to bestow it upon you, and only for your love."Hoping that the next occasion of our meeting will be more pleasing than the last, I remain your obedient servant,"R. Gay."P.S.—I mentioned last night to Davenport your desire to have him move into the castle for a while, and he utterly refuses to do anything so absurd and extraordinary."R. G."
"My Dear Ward:—I write more for the purpose of giving you time to prepare your answer, and (may I presume it?) to give you a little timely advice as to the nature of your answer, than for the sake of the communication itself.
"Yesterday, upon leaving you, I had a very momentous interview with Colonel Brand (he returned to Regis with me in the gig), in which he placed himself in the most candid and open manner upon my friendship, and explained to me what he wished to be his future course.
"After commenting with a great deal of proper feeling upon his former extravagances of life, he said that it was little wonder that a highly organized young lady like Miss Walsingham should feel a distrust of him, and that he was quite conscious of a revulsion of feeling on Miss Walsingham's part which his most heartfelt apologies for his former rudeness could not remove. He then implored me to put him upon a way to do away with the bad impression he had created, so that he might win your affection.
"'For,' he declared, with tears in his eyes, 'I have learned to love her to distraction: and if I am ever to be anything, her hand must beckon me on.'
"His sincerity so invited my sympathy that I was within an ace of disclosing to him your ridiculous suspicion, but upon second thoughts concluded that it would wound him too much. However, I proposed to stand his friend with you; so henceforth look upon me in that light.
"He then informed me that he desired to win your consent to marry him purely from personal affection, and that if you would only be his wife, he should insist upon having the whole of the Brand estates settled upon you, in case any one might accuse him of mercenary motives. And, in short, he concluded by disclosing to me his determination to end his suspense by proposing to you this evening. I urged upon him that it would be too premature, but he answered, with deep emotion:
"'She hates me more and more every day. Let me touch her noble heart by my great love, and she will pity, and in time endure me.'
"I don't know whether the course he has marked out will have that effect or not, but this I hope—that you will not turn away your co-heir without due reason.
"And now for my bit of advice.
"Weigh well before the evening the possibility of your having been unjust in your suspicions of the man who is going to offer you his hand; if you do conscientiously, you will come to the conclusion that youhavebeen unjust.
"Then ask yourself if it will be right, or generous, or honorable to dismiss St. Udo Brand from his rightful home and fortune, now that he is willing to bestow it upon you, and only for your love.
"Hoping that the next occasion of our meeting will be more pleasing than the last, I remain your obedient servant,
"R. Gay.
"P.S.—I mentioned last night to Davenport your desire to have him move into the castle for a while, and he utterly refuses to do anything so absurd and extraordinary.
"R. G."
Thus plainly showing that they washed their hands of their ward's vagaries, the executors not only refused her their countenance, but seemed inclined to go over to the enemy.
With what indignant scorn Margaret read the account of his presumed love for herself!
"He has taken his measures," she mused, "to force me into showing my hand, before I have taken one move against him. He is too clever for me. What shall I do?"
Pondering hour after hour, at length she made up her little plan with doubt and misgiving.
"Colonel Brand is coming here this evening, Mrs. Chetwode," she said, as the dusk slowly deepened on stone parapet and spiked rail, "and I wish you to bear me company in the library. You know I do not like the colonel, so you must be my chaperon."
When the suitor came to his lady's bower, on a horse which smoked with hard and furious riding, and when he followed the servant to the library, he found the lady of his heart standing with a demeanor in every way proper for the occasion, while the old housekeeper, in her best black satin, sat behind the statue of St. George, sedately knitting.
"May I entreat the honor of a private interview?" asked the smooth voice.
"We can be as private here as you wish," was the polite reply. "My housekeeper cannot hear anything unless you specially address her."
The colonel bowed and expressed himself satisfied, but if the angry glance which he cast among the murky shadows, where the bright needles clicked, meant anything, the colonel lied.
He took the chair assigned him, but evidently his proposed form of declaration was routed by this unexpected arrangement.
His fingers plucked at his dark mustache in a nervous and undecided manner, and he took a long time to deliberate before he could trust himself to launch upon the momentous subject.
"I am aware," at length began the lover, in a constrained voice, "that Miss Walsingham has conceived very unfriendly feelings toward me—an enmity, I might almost call it—for has she not expressed as much? And I have come here this evening with the hope of making a successful effort to come to an amicable understanding with her, and it will be my last trial."
Always sinking his tones a little lower, and bending to his listener, a little nearer, and casting watchful glances toward the corner where the bright needles clicked, the last word came to sound like a muttered threat, far more than the appeal of a lovesick adorer.
"If," continued he, "Miss Walsingham thinks better of these unfriendly feelings, and expresses herself willing to listen to reason, I will most gladly offer her my hand, if she will deign to accept it as the hand of her husband, and will do all in my power to make her not repent her choice; and if she acts faithfully by me, I will act faithfully by her. Does she consider it possible to say 'yes' to this proposal?"
Coldly avoiding the chance of coming to that mutual understanding which his dropped tones and significant looks insisted upon, Margaret answered in measured accents thus, decorously:
"I am not sufficiently acquainted with Colonel Brand to feel able to give him a decided answer with due appreciation of his virtues. If he will be kind enough to wait four weeks, by that time I shall have made up my mind."
The suitor tapped his heel with his cane and meditated. If his frowning brow and furious eyes did not belie him, this response was an unexpected one, and routed his previous plans.
"Have I checkmated you?" thought Margaret. "You dread the delay of four weeks? Yes, you do, I see it in your wicked face, and I say to myself, 'Well done, Margaret!'"
"I have no motive beyond your own welfare," responded the lover, "when I urge you to place the day of your answer a little nearer."
"Is that a threat? Shall I turn round and tell Mrs. Chetwode that Colonel Brand has threatened me because I cannot promise to accept him without deliberation?"
"You have misunderstood me, then I shall say to your housekeeper. I shall explain that your weak health reminded me of the danger of protracted anxiety, and that then I urged you, for your own welfare, to place the day of your answer a little nearer."
There was a pause, and the two antagonists eyed each other firmly.
"In spite of the danger to my welfare," said Margaret, with unmistakable emphasis, "I must insist on taking a month to consider your proposal. I shall take as much care as possible of my health meanwhile, so that you may have no reason to complain of my imprudence."
"You are determined, then?" said the colonel, rising, with cold fury in his eyes. His repressive power was almost forsaking him, and it was with difficulty that he preserved that decorous gentleness of manner which he had donned with such care.
"Yes, I am determined."
There she stood, waiting with freezing smile for him to go. No gentleman could decently stay another moment under such circumstances.
A sudden impulse, quick as thought, moved Margaret to accompany him to the door; a certain expression on his face stirred up a Babel of memories; it was gone, and they were gone, but she would sound the same waters again.
"Keep the door shut, John, because of the draft," she said to the servant, passing out under the stars with her adorer.
"I shall feel obliged if you only communicate with me through Mr. Davenport," said she, touching the stone lintel with her hand, "until the next four weeks elapse. I shall specially invite you to the castle should I wish to see you at any time, and I expect you to obey the call."
The colonel bowed silently.
A wild, wan moon came out through a riven cloud and shone on Castle Brand. The man on the lowest step and the woman on the highest, gazed fixedly into each other's faces; his, fierce, envious, and distrustful, hers, watchful, cold, and unflinching.
Waiting breathlessly for that wave of memory to beat upon the sands again, it came with the grouping of certain incidents, and with the magic spell of association.
The time had come when the false seeming of this man should drop like a garment. The time had come when a light from the past should break upon Margaret with the suddenly shining moon. The time had come when their souls were revealed to each other and doomed to recognition despite the most perfect masking which rascality could assume to compass its end or purity devise to hide from peril.
These two had stood thus before, the moon gleaming coldly on both—his horse pawing in the shadow, a dying woman in the Brand state chamber.
Margaret turned suddenly on her heel and shut the door. She leaned against the staircase pillars and clasped her hands under the eyes of the astonished John.
"I know him now," she muttered; "he was here the night of Mrs. Brand's death. His name wasRoland Mortlake!"
Margaret stole to her chamber and bolted the door, and leaned her dizzy head upon her hand.
Gradually the first surprise of her mind gave way before a dreadful despondency, and she revolved the revelation in ever increasing alarm.
"He is cleverer than I am," she assured herself, "and he will most likely win the contest. He has come out of a past which I shall never be able to trace to personate St. Udo Brand, and his resemblance is the weakest instrument he uses. He has appeared like a horrible phantom in St. Udo's guise, and he defies me to tear his mask from him. He is no mere adventurer who has traded upon an accidental likeness to Colonel Brand and stepped into his shoes upon the day of his death—he is a deliberate scoundrel who probably was arranging his plot upon the night on which he came from Regis with Captain Brand's letter. He has waited for St. Udo's death to step into his place and enact his life from the point where he laid it down on the battle-field. Has he anything to do with the sudden end of that life? Has he murdered St. Udo Brand? Great Heaven! am I to unvail an impostor and find an assassin in this man?"
She clenched her hands, and faithful memory brought back the vision of the dying hero, upon his pulseless horse, and she heeded it now, though she had sternly repressed all belief of it before.
"Is Mortlake the crawling demon who crouched over the brave colonel in the dark and stabbed him? Have I met him first upon the steps of Castle Brand—second in my vision of St. Udo's death, and last in my treacherous lover of to-night? Oh, my heart! is St. Udo really dead then, and by his hand! The grand lion-hearted king, by the hand of a fawning slave?"
Wild with horror, she shuddered at the dark chasm she beheld yawning in her way, but not for a moment did she shrink from the tortuous path which led to that abyss—the path of inexorable pursuit which ended not until the man was hunted down and unmasked.
She waited until she was calm, and then she wrote her letter to the two executors, which was to expose the man who stood in St. Udo's position, well knowing the dangers of the path she had chosen, and accepting her chances without fear:
"Castle Brand."Dear Sirs: This is the second appeal I make to you on behalf of the true disposition of Mrs. Brand's property. If this appeal is unheeded, I will take the case in my own hands, and pursue it to the end, whatever that end may be; and if I die before I succeed, God will hold you responsible for my death."The man who calls himself Colonel St. Udo Brand came here to-night according to appointment, and took the first step against me, and for the possession of Seven-Oak Waaste, by proposing for my hand."Believing him to be an imposter, I declined giving him a decided answer, and bade him wait for one month. In other words (and he perfectly understood it), I demanded a month in which to discover the proofs of his villany."He accepted my fiat, but with great reluctance because he felt his position so unsafe, before my marriage or death, that he feared thirty day's delay might ruin it."At the moment of our parting, a sudden rush of memory revealed to me the true personality of the pseudo Colonel Brand."I beg of you to weigh this communication well, and not to put it down as you have put down my convictions before."On the night of Madam Brand's death, you remember that Captain Brand, in his fatal carelessness, came as far as Regis to see his grandmother, and staid there, sending a note of excuse to me by a messenger. This messenger gave his name as Roland Mortlake, and stood waiting at the foot of the steps while I read the note."Mark me here! This man was so like the Brand's, that Purcell, the steward, advanced to meet him, saying:"'Welcome to the castle, captain!'"He explained that he was not the captain, but the captain's messenger, and he stood by all the time I was communicating the contents of the letter to Purcell. He was so close to us, that he must have heard all that passed. Under this belief, I turned suddenly to him and told him to go instantly for Captain Brand, and to tell him that the will must be changed, or he would be ruined."His crafty, eager look so arrested me, that I gazed fixedly in his face for some minutes; and it seemed to me that I discovered a crime-stained and guileful soul in his eyes for they haunted me long afterward."And I distinctly remember the words of the man who had accompanied him, as he rode away under the trees:"'Gardez-tu, my friend! You English take great news sourly.Ma foi!you curse Mademoiselle Fortune herself when she smiles upon you the blandest!'"I heeded these words not all then. I recalled them one by one to-night from the hidden chamber of memory, and I protest that they hold their own significance in that daring plot."Do you read nothing in this reminiscence beyond a woman's idle vagaries of fancy?"Will you believe it—only, that when I swear that the man, Roland Mortlake, who stood on the castle-steps with me that night, and the man, St. Udo Brand, who stood with me on the castle-steps to-night, are one?"I call upon you, in the interests of justice, to find the proofs of this infamous imposture."I appeal to you, that you may do your duty by the dead and unveil a monster of crime. What has Mortlake done with St. Udo Brand?"Perhaps he has murdered him. Will you let a possible murderer escape you because a woman points him out? How do we know that the news of his being killed in battle was not true? And, being true, how do we know that Mortlake's hand was not the hand that destroyed the heir of Castle Brand?"How do we know that this plot, if sifted well, would not reveal in the suitor you sent me to-night a red-handed assassin?"Come to me in the morning and tell me what you are going to do. If you are going to do nothing, then I will carry on the contest alone, and trace the history of Roland Mortlake from the bottom step of Castle Brand, where I saw him first, pace by pace, to the foot of the gallows, where I shall see him last."Yours Respectfully,"Margaret Walsingham."To Messrs Davenport & Gay."
"Castle Brand.
"Dear Sirs: This is the second appeal I make to you on behalf of the true disposition of Mrs. Brand's property. If this appeal is unheeded, I will take the case in my own hands, and pursue it to the end, whatever that end may be; and if I die before I succeed, God will hold you responsible for my death.
"The man who calls himself Colonel St. Udo Brand came here to-night according to appointment, and took the first step against me, and for the possession of Seven-Oak Waaste, by proposing for my hand.
"Believing him to be an imposter, I declined giving him a decided answer, and bade him wait for one month. In other words (and he perfectly understood it), I demanded a month in which to discover the proofs of his villany.
"He accepted my fiat, but with great reluctance because he felt his position so unsafe, before my marriage or death, that he feared thirty day's delay might ruin it.
"At the moment of our parting, a sudden rush of memory revealed to me the true personality of the pseudo Colonel Brand.
"I beg of you to weigh this communication well, and not to put it down as you have put down my convictions before.
"On the night of Madam Brand's death, you remember that Captain Brand, in his fatal carelessness, came as far as Regis to see his grandmother, and staid there, sending a note of excuse to me by a messenger. This messenger gave his name as Roland Mortlake, and stood waiting at the foot of the steps while I read the note.
"Mark me here! This man was so like the Brand's, that Purcell, the steward, advanced to meet him, saying:
"'Welcome to the castle, captain!'
"He explained that he was not the captain, but the captain's messenger, and he stood by all the time I was communicating the contents of the letter to Purcell. He was so close to us, that he must have heard all that passed. Under this belief, I turned suddenly to him and told him to go instantly for Captain Brand, and to tell him that the will must be changed, or he would be ruined.
"His crafty, eager look so arrested me, that I gazed fixedly in his face for some minutes; and it seemed to me that I discovered a crime-stained and guileful soul in his eyes for they haunted me long afterward.
"And I distinctly remember the words of the man who had accompanied him, as he rode away under the trees:
"'Gardez-tu, my friend! You English take great news sourly.Ma foi!you curse Mademoiselle Fortune herself when she smiles upon you the blandest!'
"I heeded these words not all then. I recalled them one by one to-night from the hidden chamber of memory, and I protest that they hold their own significance in that daring plot.
"Do you read nothing in this reminiscence beyond a woman's idle vagaries of fancy?
"Will you believe it—only, that when I swear that the man, Roland Mortlake, who stood on the castle-steps with me that night, and the man, St. Udo Brand, who stood with me on the castle-steps to-night, are one?
"I call upon you, in the interests of justice, to find the proofs of this infamous imposture.
"I appeal to you, that you may do your duty by the dead and unveil a monster of crime. What has Mortlake done with St. Udo Brand?
"Perhaps he has murdered him. Will you let a possible murderer escape you because a woman points him out? How do we know that the news of his being killed in battle was not true? And, being true, how do we know that Mortlake's hand was not the hand that destroyed the heir of Castle Brand?
"How do we know that this plot, if sifted well, would not reveal in the suitor you sent me to-night a red-handed assassin?
"Come to me in the morning and tell me what you are going to do. If you are going to do nothing, then I will carry on the contest alone, and trace the history of Roland Mortlake from the bottom step of Castle Brand, where I saw him first, pace by pace, to the foot of the gallows, where I shall see him last.
"Yours Respectfully,
"Margaret Walsingham.
"To Messrs Davenport & Gay."
Late as it was she rang for the housekeeper, and gave orders that her letter should be conveyed to the lawyer's house that night.
"Tell Symonds to give it to Mr. Davenport himself, and to trust it to no one else," she said.
The housekeeper met the feverish flash of her young mistress' eyes, and took the envelope from her hand with much uneasiness.
"My poor dear, you ar'nt strong enough for all this worrying and wearing," she observed, sympathetically. "I wish for your sake, deary, the colonel had lain quiet in his grave."
Margaret drew back with a sudden storm of grief, and shut the door, Mrs. Chetwode went down stairs, sorrowfully vowing to herself that Miss Margaret would pine to death before she wore the colonel's wedding-ring.
"He lies quiet enough in his shallow grave," moaned Margaret; "noble, proud St. Udo! Oh my heart; why was I doomed to be the Marplot of his life? He was so haughty in his abhorrence of low scheming—so constant in his love—so tender with his dying Vermont boys—so heroic, and so reckless of his own grand life that I love him.I love him!And he is dead!"
She wrung her hands and wept such tears as make the heart grow old, and the life wane early; such tears as are only rendered by a nature generous and effulgent in its love as tropical sunshine, whose revenge is self-immolating as the suttee of the Hindoo's widow.
Toward ten o'clock the next morning the executors made their appearance in a gig, and betook themselves to the library.
They found their troublesome ward already waiting them, with an expression of nervous defiance on her face, as if she fully expected a sound berating from each of them.
Dr. Gay looked at her anxiously, and shook his head over his own thoughts.
Mr. Davenport coughed sarcastically, and frowned to hide the effect which her blanched cheeks made upon him.
"I'm sorry to have called you out too early to begin the search," said Margaret, bitterly.
"Too early? by no means, my dear," cried the doctor, seating himself cozily near her; "it's never to early to do what's right. Now we're all ready to hear what you have got to say."
"I have told you surely enough in my letter for you to act upon," she answered, "without having to say any more. What do you say of the declaration I have made as to the man's identity?"
"Most startling!" said the physician, in a quiet tone, as if it was really not startling at all.
"What have you to say of it?" she demanded of the lawyer, with an anxious look at his impenetrable countenance.
"Consider the absurdity of your suspicions," broke in Davenport, "the childishness and impossibility of your premises. How could an imposter act out St. Udo Brand's history? How could he know Colonel Brand's most private affairs, and his friends, and write with his hand, and have the same appearance, and cheat everybody—we among the rest, who saw him when he was a boy as often as I have fingers and toes? Oh, Miss Walsingham!"
"You wish me to marry Mortlake, do you?" she asked, with scorn.
"For Heaven's sake don't call him that!" ejaculated Davenport. "If you call him that and he hears it, the Brand spirit will be very quiet for the first time if he doesn't end the slander in murder."
"It began in murder," retorted she, "that would be the fittest end, after all. But do not fear; I shall not alarm your colonel without proper cause. You really expect me to treat him as if he was St. Udo Brand?"
"Yes, until you have proofs to the contrary."
She sat with folded hands and pondered. An ashy pallor overspread her face. A mental gag was forced between her teeth; a mental rope was placed for her across a yawning chasm, and selfish hands were pushing her toward it, and selfish voices were urging her to cross alone.
"Very well," she breathed firmly, "I will bring you proofs that you will not venture to discredit. When I send for you again, come as promptly as you did to-day."
The executors were forced to depart with this arrangement, and rode back to Regis deep in discussion relating to their ward's sanity.
How long Margaret sat alone in the library she could not tell—an ominous foretaste of the grim future had shrouded her soul, and the dark hours passed unheeded by. When she roused herself, it was to instant action.
She sat down before her desk and began to write a letter—her third appeal for help.
She wrote but one passionate sentence, then her head sank between her hands.
"Who knows whether I shall live until it could be answered?" she moaned.
Bethinking herself, she tore the sheet and cast it into the heart of the fire, and took a new sheet; dashed off again but one sentence, signed her name, thrust it into an envelope, hurriedly sealing it, as if she feared her mind might change at any moment.
It was a telegram and ran thus:
"Lady Juliana Ducie:—Come at once to Castle Brand on a matter of life and death."Margaret Walsingham."
"Lady Juliana Ducie:—Come at once to Castle Brand on a matter of life and death.
"Margaret Walsingham."
Then she dressed herself and drove down to Regis in the carriage, clutching the dispatch in her hand, and drawing back from view whenever she passed a wayfarer, trembling lest her enemy should detect her in this move against his safety.
After an hour of feverish impatience, an answer came which satisfied her.
"I will come to-morrow night."Lady J. Ducie."
"I will come to-morrow night.
"Lady J. Ducie."
She went out to her carriage with a triumphant air: she felt that she was one move ahead of the colonel.
"Lady Juliana shall strip him of his disguise," she thought, "and the executors shall be present to see the exposure."
She stopped before Mr. Davenport's office, wrote a line on her card requesting that he and Dr. Gay would come to the castle the following evening about seven o'clock, and then she hurried home.
The next day passed with the anxious girl slowly enough; as the evening drew on, which she hoped would be the last of her enemy's imposture, her excitement became terrible; she was in that stage of over-strained endurance in which a triviality turns the brain.
She told the housekeeper to have a bedchamber prepared for a lady visitor, and heedless of her exclamations of wonder, directed her to send Symonds at a quarter to six to the railway station with the carriage, and to take whatever strangers were for the castle as secretly home as possible, so that no one in the village should know who they were.
"Lawk-a-mercy!" ejaculated Mrs. Chetwode, "what's Seven Oak a coming to! A body would think you was going to hide away a murderer, Miss Margaret dear."
"Not to hide away a murderer, but to discover one!" muttered the girl, turning from the colloquy.
She had two hours to wait for the coming of Lady Juliana, and she must live through the dreary time somehow, so, weary of the silence of the castle, she flung a large dark mantle about her, and went out for a walk upon the Waaste.
It was nearing the shortest day of the year, and the early twilight was already setting over the distant hill and forest.
The dun leaves, heaped high under the oaks of the front park, were white with hoary frost, crackled like paper under her feet, and, starting with every sound, she soon quitted the shadows of the trees, and paced over the sere turf down to the inky mere, where the long, brown flags pricked up in paper-like spikes, and the dank rushes pierced the filmy ices at the margin of the water, and the hazel shrubs clustered close about the slippery banks, and hid them from the Waaste.
She walked round and round in this dreary spot, while the dusk grew darker, and the frost fell whiter on her foot-prints; and, when fatigue began to demand rest, she chose a seat on the gnarled root of a giant willow, whose branches swept the ground on every side, or dipped into the mere at her feet.
She became completely absorbed in her thoughts, but presently a distant pattering, like rain upon the dry foliage, recalled her, with a disagreeable start.
She opened the branches of her yellow-leaf screen and looked about.
Nearer came the pattering steps, slow and soft; then she heard a long sniff, and a swifter pattering of the coming feet.
Her heart stood still with horror.
She saw a long, lean blood-hound leap into view, and circle slowly round the mere, his nose on the ground, his blood-shot eyes flaming through the dusk.
The colonel's sleuth-hound tracking her steps!
With what helpless fascination she watched the animal gliding like a phantom round and round, down to the lip of the mere, where she had bent to pluck a stalk, diverging a pace when she had diverged.
And behind the dog came Colonel Brand, with hands clasping each other by the wrists, and drooping figure, and head down on his breast, shuffling his dragging feet among the withered gorse as if weights held them down brooding along with the heavy and spiritless gait of an old man, or of one whose shoulders have been bowed thus by labor.
He looked not to right or left, but slouched on after his dog upon the bank, and, as he passed the woman in her hiding place, she saw that in his face, which no Brand of knightly English blood ever wore, since Sir Hildebrand broke his lance at Cressy.
That crafty and sinister half smile, that green, scintillating shimmer of the introverted eye, that gathered brow, seamed with the hideous lines of crime and cunning!
Could such a face belong to St. Udo, the dare-man and dare-devil? That coward's shuffle, and murderous, nervous hand clutching the empty air, or thrust into his bosom! Could such belong to the gallant soldier who had stormed the Rocky Ridge, and braved the cannon's mouth in the thickest of the fight? Thank Heaven, no! He lay in his hidden grave, and his bravery was glowing in the mouths of a hundred heroes, and his honor should be kept untarnished, if a woman's hand could uphold the proud escutcheon!
Closer stole the blood hound to the willow tree, but though she eyed his approach with curling blood, she would not utter a cry which might betray her to the man she hated.
For the nervous hand he had thrust into his bosom had brought out something which glittered with a steel-blue flash in the indistinct gloom, and he had come to a dead stand with it, and was looking at it with the glare of a hungry wolf.
He was but a few paces from Margaret Walsingham, and the sleuth-hound was gliding on her track, making his last circle round the mere. She knew it by his glaring eyes and watering fangs, and his short, deep groans of eagerness.
"I must have recourse to you again, my tiny talisman?" hissed Colonel Brand to his stiletto. "She insists on having you, and I am going to humor her."
He hissed these words through his teeth slowly, deliberately, as if it was a sort of joy to utter them aloud, but once, and then he thrust it into his bosom again.
And the woman tore off her heavy cloak and dropped it beneath the willow tree, and, rising to her feet, she glided through the hazel copse across the Waaste, and fled for her life, just when the snarling hound sprang upon her garment and tore it into pieces, with many a wolfish bay!
Margaret soon went to her own apartment and changed her damp garments, and then she went down stairs to the echoing reception-room, to wait for Lady Juliana Ducie.
At last came the sound of carriage wheels, the great door was opened, and a gentle stir ensued in the lower hall.
Margaret rang the bell, and waited in feverish suspense to hear the issue.
"Who has arrived?" she asked, as the housekeeper appeared, arrayed in stiff black satin.
"The lady you were expecting, miss, I take it, with a lady's maid and groom. She has gone up to her room, and told me to tell Miss Walsingham she would appear in half an hour."
It was ten minutes to seven when the visitor, having partaken of a hearty dinner in her own room, and gone through the intricacies of a super-elegant toilet, with the assistance of her maid, came down to the reception-room, and was met with outstretched hands by placable Margaret.
"How kind of you to come to me!" she breathed, "and to prove a ready friend."
The lissome figure approached—beautiful, radiant as ever—and, tripping quite up to Margaret, she took her pale hand and pressed it graciously.
"Are we friends?" she queried, with her head a little drooped on one side, and eyes raised inquiringly. "Are you going to forget my naughty petulance? Papa and I have been so angry at ourselves that we let you go."
"All that is forgotten, dear Lady Julie."
"You are such a good creature, to be sure! But now tell me, what is this wonderful matter of life and death?" demanded my lady, whose eyes were roving round the massive furniture and lordly size of the old room, as if they were accustomed to take stock. "I could not resist such a tragic invitation; but I was not alarmed, for you always had such a strange way of putting things. Now do tell me, Margaret, dear!—there is nobody half as much interested as I am—are you really going to marry him after all? Such is the report."
"Nothing has been settled yet," answered Margaret, quietly. "Take a seat near the fire, Lady Juliana. I expect some visitors in a few minutes, and you may as well be well warmed before you are presented."
My lady sat down, with a meaning smile, as directed.
"Does St. Udo expect to see me?" she asked, coquettishly. "Is he aware that I was to come?"
"He is unconscious of your presence, my lady."
"Ah, ha! Too jealous to tell him! Ah, ha! Margaret, my dear, so you are afraid of his old flame! Well, it isn't surprising. Everybody gets jealous of me. I am considered so very pretty, and I vow I have become so accustomed to being envied that I don't feel comfortable unless half a dozen women are glaring at me with jealousy!"
"Heartless as ever, my Lady Julie."
"Portentous as ever, my tragic muse. Well, well, don't be so stiff with me, your Julie—why should you? I am so curious to know something about you. I think you are a most extraordinary woman. Are you going to be the mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste after all?"
"I intend to retain possession of it."
"And to marry St. Udo? Heigh, ho! my old lover. Is he much enamored with you? Inconstant wretch! he might have run up to Hautville, if it was only to taunt me with my cruelty in jilting him. I don't seem to have got on much better for having been so obedient to papa; positively I am without a matrimonial expectation; without even anattache, except my snip of a cousin Harry, who cant marry anybody until his uncle Henry and three sons die. The Duke of Piermont has gone back to Ireland, and is supposed to be either mad or writing a book. My own opinion is, that he has fallen in love with some stock-jobber's daughter, or nameless orphan, and that his family have interfered, to prevent a shamefulmesalliance."
My lady glanced spitefully at Margaret's inflexible face, but failed to read it.
The door was opened while she was examining her shallow reservoirs for more gossip, and the two executors were announced just as the pompous hall-clock struck seven.
"You are punctual, sirs," said the lady of the castle, pressing each hand gratefully in her feverish fingers; "let me present you to a friend, whose name is well known to you: Lady Juliana Ducie."
My lady bowed to each condescendingly and sank to her cushions again with raised eyebrows. The executors looked at each other and at their ward, also with raised eyebrows.
"You shall see my meaning in a few minutes," she breathed, passing the lawyer.
"Is London very gay just now, my lady?" asked the physician, understanding the face of affairs at a glance, and good-naturedly taking up his cue.
My lady, never at a loss for small talk, instantly plunged into an ocean of that diluted composition, and the minutes sped on.
At half-past seven, punctual to the second, came an imperative ring at the great door.
Margaret started up with a quivering face, murmured, "Excuse me," and glided out to conceal the terrible agitation of her features.
She took refuge in an ante-room and summoned the housekeeper.
"Show Colonel Brand in here instead of the reception-room," she said, "and stay with me while I speak to him."
"To act sheep-dog?" asked Chetwode, venturing on a pleasantry.
"Yes," shuddered the girl; "one can never depend on a wolf."
The colonel was accordingly ushered in, and the housekeeper, knitting in hand, took her seat at a distance, as if prepared for a long interview.
"How shall I get back my composure?" thought Margaret. "I dare not face Lady Juliana until I am calm, else she would jump at this man's name."
"I have come in answer to a kind invitation from Miss Walsingham," said the man, approaching her with an insolent bravado of manner.
"Yes, I have work for you to-night."
"For or against my cause, fair lady? I decline to stand in my own light."
His evil eyes were fastened tauntingly upon her; his hand was toying with the breast of his coat.
"St. Udo Brand should fear nothing," mocked Margaret.
His eyeballs quivered and fell; the veins grew black upon his brow.
"One of your silly women had a narrow escape from being torn to pieces," he said, sourly, changing the subject.
"Yes," retorted Margaret, "I hear you keep a dangerous dog—the sooner youstab himthe safer we shall feel."
His hand dropped from his bosom as if an adder had bitten him; her meaning was unmistakable.
"Tell the woman not to venture upon dangerous ground," he growled from beneath his closed teeth. "Argus is a fierce brute, and hates a spy."
"Do not apologize for your dog's ferocity. I can well afford the loss of a cloak for the tableau I had the pleasure of witnessing."
Her pallid, daring face pointed her meaning. Colonel Brand bowed to hide his livid face as if he had received a fine compliment; those Satanic white spots were slowly disappearing when he ventured to speak again.
"Since it was my lovely hostess, and not an inquisitive kitchen-wench, who was frightened," sneered he, "Argus shall be consigned to the bottom of the mere."
"Argus knew his master Ulysses after they had been parted twenty years. Would your dog recognize you by the name of St. Udo Brand, do you suppose?"
"Sweet lady, would that my understanding could keep pace with your wit! But your prolific imagination suggested a riddle—which I have yet to find the meaning of, the wordconquered!"
"Do not cry 'hallo' until you are out of the woods. But come with me—I have a riddle which waits your solving."
Margaret entered the reception-room with Colonel Brand, and preceding him swiftly to Lady Juliana, stood aside and waited meaningly for the result.
There was a moment of disconcerted silence, then my lady, dropping a deep courtesy, cried:
"Good gracious, Captain Brand, I did not recognize you!" and coquettishly gave her hand.
The man's face would have made a study for a demon-painter in its first blank stare at the blushing lady, and its instant blaze of fury at the merciless Margaret.
Intuitively he read her insulting intention to snare him before these witnesses. For a time blind rage threatened to choke him and help him into the pitfall.
But the filmy vail hooded his eyes, and he gazed with a transfixed smile at Lady Juliana, still holding her hand.
"Must I introduce Colonel Brand? Is his memory so short?" jibed Margaret, with goading scorn.
The colonel returned to present things; made a desperate effort to appear natural, and carried Lady Juliana's hand to his lips.
"Fair as ever," he muttered, so absorbed as to appear heedless of aught else. "Ah, Lady Juliana Ducie, what an impossible task it is to forget you."
He led her to a distant sofa, and seating her, bent over her in an attitude of devotion.
Margaret stood like a statue, and pale as marble, accepted her defeat.
She saw the flush of gratified pride, the entire credulity of Lady Juliana; she saw the half-pitying, half-contemptuous smile which the executors passed with each other. She saw the stealthy look of wicked exultation with which her enemy repaid her ruse, and with a quick failing of strength and fortitude, she burst into sudden tears, turned and glided from the room.
"He is armed at all points against surprise," she moaned, in terror; "he will win the game in spite of me. You wretch! how shall I escape your vengeance?"
When she returned to her guests, half an hour later, with a slight apology for her untimely illness, she found Colonel Brand and Lady Juliana improving the time by a desperate flirtation, eager and hopeful on her part, satiric and careless on his, as beseemed the character of St. Udo, when he met again the woman who had jilted him.
No one asked the cause of Margaret's illness, or seemed at all struck by it; all had their private belief on the subject, my lady being neither slow nor reluctant to assure herself that extreme jealousy at St. Udo's marked pleasure upon seeing herself, had driven the bride-elect from the room.
When the evening had passed, like a queer, grim dream to poor Margaret, and the executors bade adieu, their ward accompanied them to the room door, and clung to Dr. Gay's arm with a pitiful reluctance to let him go.
"I have failed," she whispered, sadly; "and he has the best of it. Don't be angry with me for bringing you here to-night on such a fruitless errand. I am unhappy enough without your anger."
"It is not anger, my dear girl; it is concern that we feel for you——"
"Pho! it is anger! How long is this farce of yours to last, Miss Margaret? Will nobody but Rufus Gay and Andrew Davenport do to make up side actors for your serio-comic tomfooleries?"
"Bear with me a little longer," sighed the orphan, humbly. And then the executors went away.
The colonel with great reluctance also tore himself from the side of his charmer, and prepared to depart.
"We are quite good friends?" whispered my lady, with an arch glance into his eyes.
"My Julie will pity her poor slave in his new chains?" murmured back the colonel.
Margaret, waiting with beating pulses for his departure, heard with curling lip both question and answer.
A sly invitation to come often to see papa, followed from the lady, was chivalrously accepted by the gentleman, and her hand was once more caressed by way of farewell.
"Thanks for the pleasant surprise you have given me," said he, bending down to look into Margaret's face with an air of devilish exultation; "it was so delicately planned and so kindly meant that I shall not forget it in you. Good night."
She turned away her loathing face and bowed him out, and then came drearily up to my lady and looked at her.
"Is this man whom you met to-night changed from the man to whom you were engaged?"
"Oh! Of course he is changed. He looks ever so much older and not nearly so nice looking, and he is as grave as an undertaker, except when I make him laugh—but heigh, ho! It is no wonder, with such a burden as his grandmother placed upon him. He would soon look himself again if he had this magnificent castle, and the one whom he loves for his wife."
"You would be quite willing to marrythatperson, would you, Lady Juliana?"
"Why do you ask? Is it only to tease me? You know that I never left off loving him."
"And yet how ignoble was that love!" said Margaret, bitterly; "how shallow, that could so mistake its object! Oh, my lady, I might have remembered your skin-deep nature when I asked you to come here and help me."
"What now," cried my lady, fearing she had said too much and becoming alarmed. "Why should you talk that way to me? I can't help my love for St. Udo Brand."
"Try to help it, then, for the man is a villain," was the cold rejoinder.
"A villain!" ejaculated the other, thoroughly startled. "What can you mean? That's a strange way to speak of the gentleman you are going to marry. I—I think it is dishonorable!"
"I am not going to marryhim," returned Margaret; "oh, no, my lady—no, no!"
She burst into a wild laugh which became so violent that Lady Juliana got up uneasily and moved away.
"I must say that I am altogether mystified as to your affairs then," she remarked, sullenly; "I thought that I was summoned here to be your confidential adviser, or bride-maid, or some such thing. It seems I have come here to be laughed at."
"Pardon me," said Margaret, putting a violent strain upon herself. "I am not laughing for amusement; indeed, I am scarcely in a gay mood. I summoned you here, Lady Julie, because I hoped, through you, to settle a certain question; but I now see that it is not within your power."
Lady Juliana looked at her with intense curiosity. She had a vague idea that she had allowed something to slip through her fingers by her carelessness, and she determined, vindictively, that it should not be St. Udo Brand.
"I'll have him fast as ever bound to my sleeve," she inwardly vowed: "and I am very much mistaken if this eccentric creature does not give us Seven-Oak Waaste."
My lady drove away next morning from gloomy Castle Brand, had a coquettish half-hour of farewell at the station with Colonel Brand, who was lounging there casually, did as much mischief as she could to Margaret's cause, and went back to London, her head full of new ambitions.
And that was the end of Margaret's experiment.
It was some time after Lady Julie's useless visit, and Margaret was walking on the Waaste with Mrs. Chetwode.
She had discontinued her solitary walks since the evening by the mere, and invariably begged the housekeeper's company, or had a man-servant to keep her in sight whenever she took the air.
They wandered aimlessly over the frosty snow, side by side, and scarce speaking a word, a lowering sky overhead, and a bleak wind in their faces.
Margaret had mused over her next step until her thoughts were madness to her; and, as yet, no solution had come of the way out of her position. She had not gathered bravery enough to set another snare for her enemy, and had nervously avoided seeing him since her last discomfiture; and, too, she had heard that he was away in London, basking in the smiles of Lady Juliana. But, while revolving the next step to be taken, she was doomed to meet her enemy face to face at a time she imagined him in London.
At a turn of the path the two women came full upon the colonel, shuffling along, with his head bent, and his eyes on a book.
He thrust it hastily in a breast-pocket of his overcoat, and accosted them with an insolent leer.
"How is the fair lady after her week's seclusion?" snarled he.
"Nothing bettered by this interruption to it," returned she, coming to a dead stop from sheer inability to support herself.
"Permit me," said the colonel, forcing Margaret to lean upon his arm, "this attack of agitation is so severe that I who have caused it should render my poor services in removing it."
He bent with an ogreish smile to look into her eyes.
"Leave me," breathed the wretched girl, attempting to wrench her hand from his grasp. "How dare you molest me sir?"
"Dear Margaret," sneered the man, bending near her dead white face, "why will you hold your slave at such a distance? I who hope to be co-heir of that goodly pile beyond us before this year is out? Ten days, my dearest—only ten days to wait, and then the month is out."
She could only look at him silently; her lips moved in haughty protest, but no words came to her aid; she walked by his side dumb as death.
The good old housekeeper kept by her other side and held her passive hand, comforting her in her kindly fashion by patting and pressing it, or the poor girl's terror would have overcome her altogether.
Suddenly Margaret ceased the struggle of attempting to draw her hand from his arm, and turned her averted face toward him.
Her eyes stole over him attentively, she marked his dress and his manner with a fixed intensity—an idea bad taken possession of her which she could not drive away.
Again and again her eye returned to its scrutiny of the man, and the hand which Mrs. Chetwode was caressing, closed itself convulsively as if it held something it must keep, come life or come death. Her hand which lay upon his arm quivered against his heart as if there was something there she longed to seize.
When they reached the griffins now squatting on their snow-covered pedestals, Margaret broke her bitter silence by a forced request.
"Honor me by an interview, sir."
"Whom have I to meet this time?" he asked, with a boding smile.
"No one sir. Are you afraid of meeting strangers, Colonel Brand?"
He bowed sardonically, and followed her into the hall.
John came forward to relieve the colonel of his overcoat, and Margaret remained for some moments giving some directions to the housekeeper. When the visitor was ready she accompanied him into the library, where before a glowing fire the lonely girl was accustomed to read through the long evenings, and bade him wait her return from her chamber.
"What a home-paradise we shall have," said Colonel Brand with ironical gallantry; "I know I shall be delighted by some new and strange side of my charmer's character. I always am."
"You may," answered Margaret with a strange look.
She went out, shutting the door carefully between her and the colonel, and looking round about the vast old hall.
There stood John, still hanging up the hat, cane, and coat of the visitor.
"Carry this light up to the third hall," said Margaret, pointing to a lamp in a bracket.
He took the lamp and ascended out of view. What a transformation came over the girl's countenance then.
Her eyes lit up with triumph—she sprang to the overcoat and thrust her eager hand into the breast-pocket.
She was right. The book she had seen him reading was the green morocco note-book he had referred to when she had tried to trip him in his knowledge of St. Udo Brand's letter to her—and she had it in her hand now.
She drew it forth, and fled like a phantom to her room, just as Colonel
Brand, recalling his blunder, started up and hurried to remove the damning evidence of his own imposture.