Margaret double-locked her door, and stood listening with the book clutched fast in her hand.
Drop by drop her blood gurgled from her heart—her hair bristled.
What had she done?
She had thrown the gauntlet at him; henceforth there should be no quarter.
She thought it all out in that breathless watch for the result. She knew that she had given herself over to his sworn vengeance; that she would be cut down from his path like a noxious weed; that the battle which was coming would be abattle for her life.
Yes, her day of grace was past—even now her enemy knew his loss. She had—oh, galling thought!—outwitted him.
He searched his pockets—all of them; he shook the coat—in vain. His eyes stole up the staircase with the green glare of murder in their tawny depths; his lean face grew chalk-white; his hand hid itself in his bosom and griped something there. Alas, for reckless Margaret!
And yet the wretch stood scheming—scheming, wary as his own blood thirsty sleuth-hound.
It was a woman not easily brushed aside; He must be very cautious with his dark revenge, and creep with sheathed claws toward his purpose.
John, coming down stairs empty-handed, met the gaze of a face looking at him, which he thought at first was that of the arch enemy of mankind.
"Where has your mistress gone, my man?"
"To her room, your honor."
"Have you been meddling with the pockets of this coat?"
"No, indeed, sir; I hope you'll believe me, sir. I just had but hung it up when I was sent with a lamp to the upper hall. Please ask Miss Walsingham if it wasn't so, yer honor."
"Then, by Heaven! I've been robbed!"
He turned on his heel, and carried his livid face into the library, as spotted as if he had been smitten with a white plague, rummaged without ceremony until he had got himself pen, and ink, and paper, and wrote abillet-douxto his lady-love.
Five minutes after Margaret's whirlwind rush to her room, there came a knocking at the door.
"Who is it?"
"It's me. Miss Margaret, dear."
"Oh, Mrs. Chetwode! what is it."
"A letter from the colonel, Miss Margaret."
"Push it under the door."
"Dear me, it won't go."
"Make it go."
Presently a slip of white appeared, caught on the edge of the carpet. She seized and pulled it through.
It had got rid of its envelope in the rough transit, and came followed by fluttering rags, held together by a great wax seal, like a scarlet beacon of danger.
Still kneeling, she read it, fiercely bit her lip, and pondered.
"I give five minutes to retract your mistake. A few pencil-scrawls are not worth a life. Only five minutes, my dear Miss Walsingham."
"If I yielded, would I be safer than if I was obstinate?" she thought, crushing the scraps in her hand. "No, what arehisassurances? Lies to lull me to sleep. Let me drive my foe to open enmity—let me goad him to his ruin, or mine, if God so forgets me, but I will never give up this evidence of his guilt." She held aloft, with wild triumph, the green note-book. "Do your worst to Margaret Walsingham, you monster, but you will not get St. Udo's right out of her faithful hands. My five minutes of grace are slipping away, and I am going to defy him. I will pray Heaven to protect me, and—I will do my duty."
She bowed her head on her hands, and, as second by second slipped by, her thoughts went up to Heaven and to God, and, with the love of a servant tried and true, to Ethel Brand.
"Mrs. Chetwode?"
"I am waiting here, miss, for the answer."
"Tell Colonel Brand that the five minutes are past, andI defy him."
"Oh, Miss Margaret, dearie, them same words?"
"Exactly. Change nothing."
The housekeeper went with lagging feet and this message to the snarling hound in the library, who cursed her heartily and shut the door in her face.
Margaret remained with her head sunk on her knees in that sort of trance with which the wretch awaits the too sure sentence of death. It came; a dull tremor through the massive walls—the great door was shut—Colonel Brand had left the house.
Now she knew that she was sentenced to death; no remedy—no drawing back.
A cold ooze broke over her; her natural womanly fears became rampant; her fancy pictured the form of murder which the crawling wretch she had to deal with would most surely employ. At once the dull waves of the pool where she had encountered the sleuth-hound and his monster occurred to her; its cold chill waters enveloped her heart; the weeds and mud chocked her even more than the fancied hand at her throat; that gleaming stiletto seemed driven into her bosom; for a time she lived through the agonies of actual death.
But she was naturally a brave woman, notwithstanding all her timidity; yes, a dauntless creature, whose generous blood was sure to rise before wrong and danger.
She shook of the slavish terror which threatened to overcome her altogether, and set herself to her next course of action.
"And now for my night's work," she said, glancing round the room, where a fire burned redly in the grate, and the ghostly December day faded from point to point.
She quietly made arrangements against being interrupted; rang the bell, and called to the maid through the door that she had retired for the night, and did not wish any dinner, except a cup of strong coffee, which should be brought to her by the housekeeper.
Then she carefully locked her window, and closed the massive mahogany shutters, lit her candles, drew her writing-table before the fire, swept the hearth, and saw that she had a supply of candles, matches, and pens.
By the time these arrangements were completed, the housekeeper was knocking at the door with the edge of a lunch-tray.
"Has Colonel Brand left the house?" called Margaret.
"Yes, miss, some time ago."
"Are you sure he's not lurking about your back, Mrs. Chetwode?"
"Holy mercy! I hope not."
Sounds of the tray being dumped on a hall-table ensued, and the hurried tread of the old woman showed that she was looking into various empty rooms.
"What made you think such a queer thing, dearie?" whispered she, presently, through the key-hole. "I seen him go out, plain as plain can be."
Margaret opened the door, and held out her hands for the tray.
"What did he say to my message?"
The housekeeper gave an expressive shudder.
"Ugh! He swore like a blasphemer at me, Miss Margaret, dear."
"Keep watch lest any of the doors be left open to-night, Mrs. Chetwode."
"Oh, yes, miss—though I'm sure Purcell is very careful. My goody! Miss Margaret, how wild you look! Surely you can't be well?"
"Oh, yes. Do not let any one disturb me to-night again, if you please. Good-night."
"Sleep soundly, miss. Good-night."
The door was locked again, and Margaret sat down to her cup of coffee and her ponderings.
She was quite calm, quite strong of purpose when she opened her desk, laid the note-book upon it, and began her task.
And what a story these notes, remarks, and hinted plots disclosed to her!
It commenced with, strange to say, a description of herself, her position at Castle Brand, what she said when summoned to receive St. Udo Brand's note on the night of Mrs. Brand's death. Then followed the words:
"I believe I could do it. My own perseverance tells me I could do it; the devil in the shape of Calembours tells me I could do it."
Leaf after leaf of such hints were read and laid to heart, then a paragraph which made those deep gray eyes grow black with apprehension.
"All right. AmsureI can do it. My chances doubled by the actors themselves. The will is in favor of M. W. St. U. scornfully washes his hands of the affair, preferring a pretty face and poverty. Stupid devil, to throw away such a birthright! Lucky dog, who is to be his successor? Let the rogue win the race. I am so tired of the dodges, the twists, the aliases, the lurkings, that I will put on the greatest disguise of all, a gentleman swell, and try what freedom is like, and the sea-captain's daughter, and Seven-Oak Waaste. St. U. sails to-morrow for the United States, and I send company with him which will twist him into shape more than the haughty dog expects. Be kind to him, oh, captivating chevalier! be attentive to him, oh, patientThoms!"
Then came a complete interview between St. Udo Brand and the "Chevalier," purporting to have taken place on board the steamer going to New York, with this laudatory conclusion:
"Thoms, you are no fool. Thoms, I really think you are a genius."
Leaf after leaf again. The firm lip curved with stern determination, the brain quick and comprehending.
The copy of the farewell letter from St. Udo to herself was the next glimpse of a familiar past, with the leaf turned down just where the cunning hypocrite had marked the place during that walk under the oaks.
Then a copy of his letter to Lady Juliana Ducie, in which he had "pinned his faith" to her sleeve, with a memorandum attached of, "Faithfully mailed by good Thoms; and thus ends St. U.'s affair with little Ducie. Now he will fight like a devil with these Yankees."
Following this was the transcription of two letters to Gay and Davenport, in which St. Udo had scornfully explained the fact of his departure from England.
Then came the secret of his ready recognition of Lady Juliana when she stood before him in the Brands' reception-room. Her photograph, painted beautifully, was pasted into a cunning little pocket, and her description was written out at full, as if the picture were not to be trusted alone.
Initials of strange names—addresses in London, scraps of information about officers in the Guards—a frequent (see private album)—carefully notedbon motsof different English friends of the colonel's, anecdotes of London life, all headed by the significant note:
"Brand's daily gossip.—Study well."
Then came a copy of Lady Juliana's letter of dismissal, with the comment:
"Thoms, my boy, you did well to search that vest pocket."
This grim pleasantry of the genial writer closed what appeared to be part the first in the movements of the watched man.
Let her think before she turned the leaf; let her rest her whirling brain awhile, and examine this curious idea which had slid into her mind. Who was Thoms!
In this memorandum book he purported to be a valet. Was Thoms Roland Mortlake? Could he have crawled round his purpose under the disguise of a body-servant, touching daily the man whom he meant to murder?
Put these thoughts of horror away—go on to the end.
Part the second commenced with St. Udo's first battle, and his part in it minutely described.
Then followed letters from the executors of the Brand estates, in which Margaret saw her departure to become school-teacher freely commented on as a freak which would soon wear itself out.
Then suddenly followed, dashed down in a rough, unsteady hand, as if in the dark, five or six pages of phonetic writing.
Patiently Margaret spelled it out—the life of St. Udo Brand, as told to the Chevalier de Calembours at the midnight camp-fire. Every minute detail, every passing mention of a friend, of a place visited, of scenes, adventures, college incidents; also what made the heart burn in the breast of the woman who was reading these records—a few sad sentences which told the secret of poor St. Udo's bitterness.
"Calembours, I would have been a better man now but for one grave mistake which I made early in life. I loved a woman passionately and purely; she was my first conception of love, and would have perfected in me a noble manhood had she been worthy. She broke the trust—vilely cheated me, and fled with an officer in the artillery, a man whom all pure women would have shrunk from; and she was lost, as she might have foreseen. Since then, to perdition to the sex, say I, and their cant of feminine purity, for of all crafty, insatiable, double-faced hypocrites I have found woman to be the worst."
The next few leaves were covered with crude specimens of writing. St. Udo's name again and again, until it was a perfect imitation of St. Udo's hand, and, after this, the notes were written in the newly-acquired style, as if to perfect the cunning forger.
Then was faithfully narrated an interview between "the chevalier" and Colonel Brand, in which the former was proposing to his friend to turn traitor, and go with him to the South, and take up arms against their present comrades.
And, as a brave man would answer, so answered the honest Englishman, heaping epithets of scorn and anger on the little traitor. Attached to this was the memorandum:
"Calembours has parted with my man; not good for Calembours; he has broken the bargain. Thoms has stuck by Brand; invaluable Thoms; so will he stick by Brand while he lives. He says so. Has he very long to live? No."
On the succeeding page came a sudden change; a few wild sentences in the breathlessness of rage.
"He has given me the slip. He has slipped the noose and got away. Where? where? Have I lost him? have I lost my prize at the last trick, my Castle Brand, my good luck, my fair play, my amends for seven months of toil under his boot-heel? No, not while I have brain to plan, or body to track him. I swear to leave this book untouched until I have found him and left him a lump of clay."
Leaf by leaf is turned over; the pale hand stops and trembles down to her side.
Here is a note. If he has kept his vow, this note is a record of St. Udo's murder. She reads a date, and her eyes seem to pulsate with blind fire.
"September 1st. The deed is done. Lost in the skurry of a midnight sortie. 'Killed in battle,' his men will say; but—Thoms knows better! He tracked him with his long sleuth-hound through the swamps, and the surging morass, and the long, hot highway, the spikey groves, the dark fens, and through hunger and danger of death; and he found him! Why not keep his promise? He stole his history, habits, phrases, manners, friends; and now, the lesson being learned, Thoms may keep his promise, made to himself. He stooped this moonlit night upon the battle-field, and stole his master's life, and stood erect—notThoms, the ignoble valet, but St. Udo, the heir of Castle Brand!"
Margaret paused, sick and heart-quenched.
Memory brought back the vision of the battle-field, and of the wounded hero, and of the brooding assassin, and reason stood aghast at the manifest overturn of her natural laws.
"Grant me days enough to avenge him, high Heaven!" she cried, with a passion of tears.
She would allow herself no luxury of sorrow; she repressed these tears, trimmed her candles—took up her bitter task again.
Part the third showed that the murderer had arrived in England; that he had lurked about the castle for a few days before presenting himself, and acquainted himself with as many necessary facts as possible. After this came the appearance of the pseudo-heir before the executors.
"I have stepped into the wrong man's shoes with marvelous ease, and I have seen my future wife. Could anything be more appropriate, I wonder, than for her to faint at sight of me? I am resolved to marry her. It wouldn't be fair play to silenceheras I silenced some one who is in his grave; and when we are man and wife I will tell her where she first saw her husband."
The second entry was not quite so confident:
"The girl is going to be troublesome. Confound her! why has she taken such a dislike to me?"
Entry the third still more expressive of alarm:
"What's this I hear? The girl left Gay's house without any explanation, and gone to Castle Brand. What does that mean? Has she taken anything into her head againstme?
"I think she has seen with those mystical eyes of hers the deep ruts on my wrists and ankles; and I think she is looking back a dozen years to the man who lay in chains and cursed her cup of cold water. Confound her! I am afraid of her."
There were other allusions to her which made her eyes blaze with indignation, intermixed with careful entries of names or localities which might be useful to the adventurer; and still, step by step, the purpose of the man slowly unfolded itself. He had expected at first to deceive Margaret Walsingham with the rest, and to win the fortune by marrying her.
"A more monstrous fate," thought the girl, "than death."
But it soon appeared that she had betrayed her distrust, and he was quietly waiting a chance to remove her. One note broke out thus:
"The girl will be my ruin, unlessI shut the hatcheson her. She has shown her hand to-day in three different attempts to make me betray myself. By Heaven, she will succeed if she tries that long; but I have made a counter plot which, clever as she is, she can't evade. I have been beforehand with her, and won the confidence of the executors. I have also announced my determination to propose to-morrow for her. If she refuses, that's a sign that I let the hatch drop; if she accepts, hold up the hatch a while, and give her another chance."
The result of his proposal showed how unlooked for her answer had been.
"She's a move in advance again—clever she devil; I am quite thrown out. Proposed according to plan; was put off for a month. I think her demand of a month's time to consider means a month's time to run me to the end of my chain. My chain would run out in a week with her at the right end of it; so I suppose it must be once, twice, thrice, anddown goes the hatch!"
The next entry was written with the sneer of a triumphant demon:
"Thought you would trip me, did you? Silly fool, to tamper with your crazy hatch-door! Don't you know that when it drops you will suffocate? So you expected me to be caught by Lady Juliana Ducie, did you? No, no, my bride of death, I have pored over her picture too often. But for your fine intention you shall suffer, Margaret Walsingham!
"My lady is a mighty fine-feathered bird formeto have fluttering round me. I have a mind to marry the marquis' daughter when the watch-dog of the castle has died of her little sickness; wouldn't that be fair play all round?"
The succeeding notes described two visits to London, in which the daring wretch had penetrated into the Marquis of Ducie's residence, and had private interviews with my lady, who seemed to be straining every nerve to win him from Miss Walsingham; and it closed with the ominous sentence:
"Little Ducie proves so much to my taste that I will go down to Surrey, anddrop that hatch!"
The diary in the note-book had come to an end. Mortlake's secrets were hers now. Mortlake's course of crime was run, if she could live to give them to the world.
Margaret once more trimmed her candles, replenished the drowsy fire, paced up and down her room, and then sat down and commenced to copy such parts of the entries as bore directly upon the conspiracy.
Hour followed hour; the candles burned down; the fire wasted to white ashes; the wintry wind moaned without, carrying sleet on its wings.
Still the girl's strength held out; she wrote with energy the dark record which was to ruin the murderer of St. Udo Brand. Long past midnight found her at the last page, and at the last sentence:
"Little Ducie proves so much to my taste that I will go down to Surrey, and drop that hatch."
The hoarse baying of the dogs roused her to things present. She rose from her cramped position, cold and trembling with terror.
Who was lurking about so late? Her enemy?
The candles dropped into their little wells of boiling wax and expired. She stood in the pitchy darkness, listening.
The angry babel of howling dogs filled her ears again. A sudden pause; they, too, were listening. Then a yelp of canine rage and eagerness.
Margaret groped in the box for another candle and a match; fitted the candle into the tall silver candlestick, lit it, and gathered up her papers, while the flame was as yet small and sickly as a far-off star.
She hid them all in a compartment of her desk, carried the desk to a closet, locked it, and hid the key beneath a loose edge of the carpet.
"I may pay the forfeit of my life for these proofs," she thought; "but Davenport and Gay shall see them, whatever the risk, and my work shall descend to their hands if I am removed."
She was calm, but a curious pulse was beating in her ears and deadening her sense of hearing. Through it she could swear that strange noises were in the air, which were entirely foreign to any that could be caused within the house.
The bounding pulse still beat in her ears, and she stood intently waiting.
What it was she knew not, which smote her whole being into intensity—her hair bristled.
There it was again—through the thick shutter and massive window—the deep breathing of a man who has been hard at work, and stops his operations to listen.
Could it be that her enemy was at the window?
Margaret shrank back; she had been standing in profile, not two feet from the window, and her ear had caught the indistinct sounds so clearly that she was able to trace them immediately to their cause.
A man was in the balcony outside her window, and he was listening to know whether she was sleeping or waking. Perhaps a burglar? No.
Mortlake was there to retrace his false step before the morning light should place his secret in other hands.
"He's going to force an entrance and murder me," thought Margaret, who could reason distinctly in this moment of peril; "and, knowing that I only share the knowledge of his guilt, he hopes to escape suspicion. He will arrange it like a burglary—likely take away my few jewels and articles of value, and drop them in the mere. I am afraid I am lost."
These thoughts just glanced through her mind as lightning glimmers through the thunderous clouds, and, with the sudden instinct of self-preservation, she ran to the door, determined to rush into safety.
Before she had reached it, or her hand could touch the lock, a slow and gentle scratching on the window-pane arrested her, and she paused, fascinated, to understand it. Scratch—scratch—scratch—cr-ick! the tiny tinkle of falling glass.
Scratch—scratch—scratch—scratch—scratch—scratch! cr-ick—cr-ick! More glass falling, a crunching footstep, a soft tremor of the mahogany shutter!
Margaret essayed to wrench round the heavy lock of her door.
Her hand had no more strength than an infant's. She shuddered from head to foot.
One more desperate wrench!
A low snarl reached her ear! Eager paws beat at the bottom of her door!
She stood transfixed as the devil's cunning of her adversary dawned upon her mind.
The terrible sleuth-hound had been stationed outside her door, ready to tear her limb from limb when she should issue.
The game had passed out of her hands. Should she trust to the blood-thirsty brute, or to the blood-thirsty man?
I think she would have thrown herself upon such mercy as the hound would show her, rather than trust to Roland Mortlake. But the time had passed even while she stood in sore doubt.
That mysterious tremor of the shutter had ceased, and now, in the ominous stillness, she saw—oh horror! what was that?
A small circular hole had been cut in the panel, and through it she caught the glitter of ahuman eyewatching her.
The blood curdled in her veins, her hands fell, clasped, before her, she stood, with her head bent forward, and dilated eyes returning that awful stare.
No horror, caused by death in any form, could have equaled that caused by the mere stealthy glare of a human eye watching her, gleaming upon her, unaccompanied by the visible face.
Suddenly the eye was removed, a sharp click broke the supreme silence, a long, slender tube was thrust half-length through the aperture, and pointed with deliberate aim at her heart.
A blind haze came between her and the hideous vision. Quicker than thought she darted to one side, and sank to the floor, almost insensible.
Her sight cleared, and she looked for the pointed pistol.
It was slowly veering round, to bring her again within range.
Her eyes measured the room wildly. The windows commanded every part of it except the two upper corners. She must fly across the room or be shot like a dog.
She sprang up and flitted swiftly along the wall, and out of range.
Now she was safe for a few seconds. She might crouch upon the carpet and pray a few wild words for safety.
The pistol returned to the door and covered it, in case of attempted escape.
As long as her enemy could get nothing larger than the tube of a pistol in, she was safe in her corner; but if he enlarged the hole enough to introduce his hand with the pistol, she was lost; for there was no large piece of furniture near which she could hide behind.
"If I could but circumvent him until daylight," she thought, "this night's danger would be past."
She looked at her watch. It was two of the night.
"Three hours to wait," she pondered, with a despairing heart. "Can I possibly defy him for three hours? He is crafty and desperate; he is here to put an end to my life, and will not go away unsuccessful. I am terrified, helpless, and without resource. Which of us is likely to triumph?"
Her eyes went longingly to the old-fashioned bell-pulls hanging at each side of the fire-place.
"If I dare to rush across the room and ring a peal to awake the household, I would be shot before my hand left the bell-rope," she told herself.
Why had she lit the tell-tale candle? There it burned, white and faintly tremulous in the current of air caused by the hole in the shutter, slowly wasting away, but distinctly revealing her every movement to the watchful assassin without.
Was there no way by which she could extinguish it and leave herself in the friendly darkness?
If the thought occurred to him of enlarging the aperture and shooting her in her place of refuge, the candle would too surely guide his murderous hand.
Even while thus she reasoned, the pistol was removed, and the grating of a tiny saw against the shutter recommenced.
Horror paralyzed the terrified girl for an instant; the next, with rare presence of mind, she snatched the cloak off her shoulders in which she had been wrapped, and hurled it with all her strength across the room.
Like a huge, ugly bat, it made for the candle, swept it off the table, and she was surrounded in a moment by darkness.
The grating sound came to an abrupt stop, and a smothered oath came through the auger-hole.
"Give up that book, Margaret Walsingham," said the hoarse voice of her foe, "for as sure as you live and breathe your life will go for it if you don't."
Margaret remained still as a statue, not daring to breathe.
"I'll make terms with you even now, if you hand me the book," said the wily voice again.
She bowed her face in her hands, and smiled even in the midst of her terror at such a proposition.
A long silence followed, then the steady sawing of the wooden panel went on.
It was done. A wintry star glimmered in through a gap large enough to admit a man's arm; then the star was blotted out, and a metallic click was heard.
She felt, with a muffled and sickening heart-throb, that her enemy was holding the pistol at full cock toward her, only waiting for the least betrayal to fire.
She raised her head and watched, in fascinated horror, for the flash which was to herald her death.
"Do you surrender?" demanded the assassin, in a voice quick and imperative.
Had Margaret possessed an atom less presence of mind, she would have answered involuntarily "No," in her scorn of the cowardly villain, but she bit her lip in time, and held her peace.
Full well she knew that her first word would be the signal of her death.
"There are two hours and a half before daylight," said the enemy. "Are you willing to have that pistol pointed at you for two hours and a half, waiting to shoot you with the first gleam of daylight, or will you give up the note-book and come to terms with me, for our mutual safety?"
Margaret would not peril her safety by a whisper.
"I don't object, even after all that has passed, to marry you, and let you be mistress of the property, if you will only say yes."
"Heaven grant me patience to keep quiet," prayed Margaret, in her soul.
"Are you there, girl, or am I talking to an empty room?" called the man, with a bitter oath. "Have you slipped, with your confounded cleverness, out by some side door?"
Not a breath answered him; his own breathing almost filled the room as he applied his ear to the hole.
A protracted silence ensued. The man at the window waited with murder in his black soul for the faintest sound within; the hound at the door sniffed with dripping fangs, and waited too, demon-like in his imitation of his master; the lonely woman crouched in the corner, defenseless, weak, affrighted, and prayed that Heaven would keep her safe.
The hours crept slowly on, but oh! how leaden were their wings. The death-watch of these three was drawing to an end.
Margaret kept her dizzy eyes still fastened upon the black line that began to be discernible at the window, and saw a crisis approaching.
"Are you dead or living in there?" said Roland Mortlake, at the auger-hole, "If you are, you're a brave girl, and I want you for my wife. Say 'yes.'"
No answer from within, save the whine of the sleuth-hound at the door.
A distant bugle call from without, from some early huntsman.
An angry hand shook the heavy shutters. Thank heaven! the bolts were the massive bars of the sixteenth century, made for feudal defense and not for beauty.
"If I break in the window, it won't be good for you, Margaret Walsingham," was the boastful threat, as a second shaking was administered to the shutters.
The clear, joyous notes of the bugle sounded nearer; the lusty holloa of the sportsman to his dogs came over the Waaste and into the hole to the ear of Margaret Walsingham, and a rush of joy swept over her and gave her hopes of life.
This early huntsman was no doubt Squire Clanridge, who, she now remembered having heard from Purcell, the steward, was to take the Seven-Oak dogs out this morning to have a run with his own.
He would pass this side of Castle Brand on his way to the kennels, and the cowardly assassin would have either to fly or be seen.
An imprecation burst from him in a voice which betrayed his fury, his disappointment, his apprehension.
A wild smile quivered over Margaret's white face as she saw the arm withdrawn and heard the dismal moan of the night wind through the hole.
Hasty feet crunched on the sleet-covered balcony, and the scratching sound of a man swinging himself down by some rattling chain-ladder followed.
The quick gallop of the horses' feet shortly became audible, and she knew that the squire, with his groom, were clattering up to the court-yard of the castle.
Five minutes afterward a hissing whistle was answered by a snort from the patient blood-hound, which had watched so long at the door, his light feet scratched their way down the slippery oaken stairs, and once more Margaret was alone.
She had been saved through a night of peril such as turns the jetty locks of youth to the lustrous white; she had been saved to rush for aid and have the murderer arrested with the pistol still in his hand.
She was a free woman once more, and God had been kind to her this long dread night.
She rose from her paralyzing attitude and approached her little bed to sink on her knees beside it and pour out her full heart of gratitude to Heaven, but she only went a little way and fell on her face and fainted.
And the first sun-ray of another dawning smote across the weary old world, flushing its icy bosom, and stole through the hole in the shutter, and touched the ceiling, thus casting a reflected beam, like a faint smile, upon the unconscious face of the orphan girl.
At ten o'clock of the morning Mrs. Chetwode was knocking at Miss Walsingham's bedroom door.
"Excuse me, miss, for disturbing you, but the colonel is here, and wishes most particular to see you."
"Oh, please leave me alone," answered the young lady from within, weakly and plaintively: "I am ill and can see no one."
The housekeeper returned to Colonel
Brand, who was pacing about in the gallery, under the long lines of dead Brands, among which was not the face of the latest dead, and informed him with a lugubrious face that Miss Walsingham was wild yet as she had been last night, and seemed afraid to open the door, which was one of her meagrims, poor dear, to have it locked, and her not well.
"Keep her quiet," answered the colonel, with that crafty smile of his behind his long and stealthy hand, "she is going to have a serious illness. Keep her very quiet. Poor lady, she shows signs of insanity; keep her perfectly quiet."
Then, to be on hand, in case the young lady should consent to see him, as he informed Mrs. Chetwode, he made himself at home in a quiet way at Castle Brand, sauntering, with his hands in his pockets, through the wide rooms; smoking on the front steps, eating lunch in a room which commanded a view of the stairway, with his ugly companion by his side, whose dripping fangs and blood-shot eyes were his master's admiring study, and often slapping his own chest with an angry malediction, because a certain rawness, or hoarseness, had got into his windpipe.
No adoring lover could have expressed more anxiety concerning the lady of his heart than did the gallant colonel for Miss Walsingham. He sent up a bulletin in the shape of John the footman every hour, to listen at the young lady's door whether she was moving—not to disturb her, only to listen, and bring back word to this anxious well-wisher.
Thus passed the morning below stairs.
How fared it with poor Margaret?
Nature had suffered a complete collapse. The horror of the night was telling upon her pale, drawn face, her bloodless lips, and nerveless hands. Utter exhaustion was weighing her down.
If her enemy had been making a bonfire of Castle Brand beneath her, profound exhaustion would have compelled her to lie there and doze, even while she perished in the flames.
She lay in bed with half-closed eyes, tossing from side to side as the piercing light from the hole in the shutter worried her; dozing heavily, often waking to murmur some feverish thought, starting up and listening—sinking back in her weakness to sleep again.
Toward the middle of the afternoon she roused herself, came to a completer sense of reality than she had done yet, and sprang from her bed. She had to sit for several minutes upon the side of it, with her hands tightly clasped upon her brow, before she could come to a decision as to what her next move could be.
"I am mad to waste the few hours of grace in sleep, instead of putting myself, under the protection of my friends!" she said.
"I must not lose another hour."
She rang the bell, and began to dress herself as hurriedly as weakness would admit of.
"Are you up, Miss Margaret, dear?" said the housekeeper, anxiously, from the hall.
She unlocked the door, held it opened fearfully, and beckoned her to come in.
The old lady's first look was at the girl's face, at which she gasped.
Her next was at the window, from which a blinding ray and a cold current of air assailed her; at which she shrieked:
"Lord ha' mercy! How came that there?"
"Ask me nothing," shuddered Margaret. "I am going to have the affair sifted to the bottom."
"But why didn't you raise the house? Wasn't it a burglar?"
"No. I can tell you nothing about it until I have put myself under the protection of Mr. Davenport and the doctor."
She spoke quite evenly, but there was a suspicious wildness about her eyes which struck a new vein in the prolific brain of the housekeeper.
"Miss Margaret, deary! you didn't surely make that hole yourself?"
Margaret burst into vehement laughter. Her brain was so tried and over-strained that a touch might turn it. To ask her if she had done it!
And then, on the other hand, to think that Mrs. Chetwode should seem to be distrusting her sanity, like the others!
Down came the tears in a rushing torrent!
"My! She's in hysterics!" shrieked Mrs. Chetwode, catching the poor girl in her arms. "Don't, dear, don't!" shaking her vigorously. "Be quiet now, deary, love! Whisht! whisht!"
Wilder grew Margaret's sobs, shriller her laughter. She writhed herself out of Mrs. Chetwode's arms, and pointed to the door.
"You have left it open!" she gasped, "and the colonel will shoot me! Shut it, for heaven's sake!"
Mrs. Chetwode locked the door, with a glance at her mistress, which said, as plain as eyes could say it:
"Poor thing! She is crazy!"
"Miss Margaret, dear, go back to your bed. You're not fit to be up at all to-day. When you feel better, we'll find out about this shutter business. Or may be you'd better come into my room. There's a dreadful draught here."
"I must go down to Dr. Gay," said Margaret, still hysterically. "Tell Symonds to have the carriage ready."
"Miss Margaret, lovey! I don't know that the colonel will like you to go out. I—I'm not sure that he'll let you.
"Is he in this house?"
"He's waited from ten o'clock, until now, nigh on four o'clock to see you when you should get up. He told me you weren't well."
"Mrs. Chetwode—oh, dear Mrs. Chetwode save me from that man! I must escape from Castle Brand without his knowledge."
"Let me send for Dr. Gay to come to you," she answered, uneasily.
"No, no!" moaned the over-tried girl. "My life is not safe here another night. I insist upon leaving Castle Brand."
Mrs. Chetwode walked to the window and employed herself in opening the shutter.
What she saw when the shutter was opened struck her dumb with surprise for some minutes.
A complete pane of glass had been removed, and set against the balcony railing. A glazier's diamond lay beside it; a chisel was dropped upon the farther end of the balcony; deep foot-prints were in the snow, and a blackened place before the window showed where the midnight watch had been kept.
"Good Lor'!" ejaculated the old woman, "must have been a bold thief."
"It was Colonel Brand!"
Mrs. Chetwode gasped, eyed her suspiciously, backed a few steps, and took hold of the door handle.
"Poor thing!" she whispered to herself.
"Mrs. Chetwode, I told you last night to see that all the doors were locked. Did you?"
"Yes, Miss Margaret, dear! Yes."
"The library glass door?"
The housekeeper looked disconcerted.
"It went clean out of my mind, sure enough."
"Ha! That is how the watch was placed at my door."
"Good gracious! A watch at your door?"
"The colonel's sleuth-hound."
The housekeeper unlocked the door, rushed out, and went straight to Colonel Brand.
"Well, my good woman, you look disturbed," said that amiable thug, taking his cigar out of his mouth to blow a spiral curl of smoke at her; "have you been with Miss Walsingham, and is she as wild in her manner as she was last evening when I had the honor of escorting you both home from your walk?"
"Worse, sir, far worse; she's out of her mind complete as you may say. And she's had a dreadful fright through the night."
"Ah! What is that?"
"Some rank rascal has tried to break in. It's an attempt at burglary, which didn't succeed, but it have made her wild like."
"An attempt at burglary? How very extraordinary!"
"And she is raving about it, poor soul. Oh, dear me, we must send for Dr. Gay."
"Yes, you had better send for Dr. Gay instantly, Chetwode. What may the nature of her ravings be?" inquired the colonel, blandly.
"All sorts of things: that your dog there was at her door all night, and—and other fancies."
"Ah!" in a tone of sympathetic interest; "unfortunate girl! Here, Argus, good dog, speak up for your character, my boy!"
The dog blinked his small blood-shot eyes, and rose to shake himself, as if he meditated a spring upon his traducer.
"Oh, Lor', don't show me to him," exclaimed Mrs. Chetwode, shrinking out of view.
The colonel showed his long, hungry teeth, by way of grim smile, and gave the animal a kick. "Don't be afraid. Are you going to send, then, for Miss Walsingham's friends?"
"Would you say so, sir?" said the anxious creature, wavering between the desire to humor her young mistress, and the fear of disobeying the colonel.
"I would say so, certainly. The affair of the attempted robbery should certainly be followed up for one thing; her state of mind attended to for another."
Margaret's bell rang, and Mrs. Chetwode went up stairs, almost afraid to venture near her again.
"Has Symonds got the carriage ready?" cried Margaret, the instant she appeared.
She was sitting with her bonnet on, dressed for her drive, with a satchel in her hand.
"Lor', you're not fit to go out," ejaculated Chetwode, in amazement. "We're going to have Dr. Gay up to the castle, since you want him so, my deary."
"Did Colonel Brand say I was not to leave the house?" demanded Margaret.
"He thinks you're not well enough, that's a fact."
"I defy him, or any one to keep me prisoner here. You must disregard him, Mrs. Chetwode, and get me driven down to Regis."
"I'm afeard to do it, Miss Margaret."
"Then I shall defy him, and go before his eyes. Get Symonds ready silently, that there may be no opposition. As you value my life, go."
Mrs. Chetwode, torn between two influences, and always subject to the latest, bounded out of the room as if the limbs of twenty years ago had been miraculously granted her, and went stealthily enough down the long stairs to the servant's quarters.
In fifteen minutes she ventured back with a bottle of wine under her apron.
"He's ready, miss, and at the lower door. You needn't meet the colonel at all; he's just gone into the library, and shut himself in. Now, my poor miss, you must drink something before you go to strengthen you, and eat a bite."
"Nothing in this house—no!" cried Margaret, shuddering; "I cannot be sure of even the food!"
"Don't let them put you in a hasylum, deary love; be careful what you say, now won't you?"
"No fear of that with these papers," replied Margaret, holding up the satchel exultingly.
By dint of perseverance the housekeeper prevailed upon her to drink a glass of wine.
It is doubtful if she could have walked down stairs, and borne the ordeal of her terror, but for this stimulant. But she reached the lower door, and entered the carriage safely.
The colonel, after all his watching, was strangely derelict now, when he had most cause for vigilance, and seemed quite unconscious that his enemy was escaping to her friends, out of his reach.
Margaret's eyes traveled once over the towers and battlements of gloomy Castle Brand, as they left it behind. They seemed to look a long farewell—perhaps a farewell which would last forever; and then a turn in the narrow stable-road brought a grim brick wall between her and her castle, and she sank back upon the carriage-seat.
Ten minutes after her departure Colonel Brand came out of the library, with his slouching dog at his heels, and called the housekeeper.
"Here's a note to Dr. Gay, informing him of Miss Walsingham's state. Can you send a messenger with it to the village immediately?"
Chetwode turned livid and then gray; held out her hand for the note and drew it back again.
The colonel's eyes scintillated in a way that made her blood run cold, and his boding smile was a failure as far as reassuring her went.
"What's the matter, woman? Have you the presumption to refuse to send a messenger at my request?"
"I couldn't help it," stammered the old woman, bursting into sobs; "she wouldn't hear to one word, and she—she's off to Regis."
"Who? Miss Walsingham? Have you let her leave the castle after all?"
"Lor', master, she was set to go. I thought it wouldn't make much difference whether she was took from Dr. Gay's to the mad-house or from here."
"You are right," muttered the colonel, grimly. "It makes no difference."
He tore his note in two, pushed the housekeeper rudely out of his way, and strode out to the solitary Waaste.
The Brand carriage stopped opposite Lawyer Davenport's office door, and Symonds dismounted.
"Why," exclaimed Miss Walsingham, opening the window, "I do believe the door is locked. Surely he has gone away very early in the morning."
Symonds rapped and tried the door—peeped through the dusty window, and found that Miss Walsingham was right.
"We shall go up to his house," she said, pulling up the window.
Arriving at Mr. Davenport's neat and commodious bachelor's abode, Symonds, after inquiry, reported that the lawyer had left on "sudden business this morning for Wales; they don't know where or when he's coming back, but you will hear all about it from Dr. Gay; which was the message left for you."
Again Margaret leaned back in her seat. A look of bitter disappointment and even terror was depicted upon her face.
Once more they rolled into Regis over the slushy snow, and paused at the doctor's house.
Former disappointments had made her so nervous and fearful that she dropped the window and bent forward the better to hear the report.
"Here's Miss Walsingham, to see Dr. Gay. Is he in?"
"No," answered the boy in buttons, "he's away."
"What hour will yer master be at home?"
"Dunno. He was called away very sudden, on a journey; mistress knows."
"What?" cried Margaret, shrilly.
"He says the doctor was called away, on a sudden, too, and that he don't know where."
"Heaven help me, what does this mean?" said the poor girl, alighting and confronting the boy like a pale ghost risen out of its grave.
"When did he go—you surely know that?"
"I'll call mistress," said the boy, backing. "Come in, miss, and wait."
In a few moments the doctor's wife joined her, melancholy as usual.
"Oh, Mrs. Gay, it cannot be possible that the doctor has gone away without letting me know?"
"I do not know, my dear young lady, but it is quite certain that he went away somewhere without letting me know. I had precisely fifteen minutes to pack his valise in."
"Don't you know where he has gone?" asked Margaret, the gloom of death descending upon her heart.
"Not exactly; he vouchsafed to mutter 'Wales,' as he ran down the steps, without even a farewell to his boy, far less to his wife, and for what, or what he can mean by it is a mystery to me."
"Did he leave no message for me?"
"I believe he did. I do seem to recall that he said you were to go to Mr. Davenport for explanations. Yes, that was the message."
"Good heaven! And Mr. Davenport left word that I was to come to your husband for explanations! They must have gone away together! And I am left alone to fight for my life and to stem the tide of fraud!" moaned poor Margaret, bursting into tears; "and oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"
The tide of horror was mounting higher, the waters gurgled to her lips, and her own feeble hands must raise a footway from out of the hissing waves to bear her safely over.
"Where now, miss?" asked Symonds, holding the coach door in his hand.
"Drive to the office of Seamore Emersham, the lawyer," said Margaret.
The coachman mounted to the box, turned the carriage, and rolled down the street again.
"Can it be doubted that my guardians have been purposely sent out of the way, that I may not appeal to them for protection?" she thought. "No, I am not deceived; Mortlake is too talented a plotter to leave a door of safety open for his victim. With what plausible excuse can he have duped the suspicious Davenport, and the humane Gay, that they have both left me in his power? No doubt he expected to keep me a prisoner in the castle until I had either capitulated or fallen a victim to his rage. But I have escaped him, and am free to seek protection where I please, and since my friends have allowed themselves to be cheated by the villain, I shall lay my case before this other lawyer, Mr. Emersham. I have only to disclose the outrage attempted last night, and my enemy shall be arrested. Oh! you arch fiend! you did not expect this chapter in the story, did you? No, you wretch, you do not know that Margaret Walsingham is posting to sure victory, and your certain destruction!"
Symonds drew up before Mr. Emersham's windows, and the lawyer himself looked out at this unwonted vision of a carriage at his door, and drew back with a smirk of satisfaction!
Margaret had her foot on the step, her hand on the servant's shoulder, and was about to alight, when a triviality stayed her steps, an incident changed her purpose—she sat down again and waited.
Through the drab-colored mire of the village street, a man was trudging, his scarlet coat the one object of interest in the lonely street, an envelope in his outstretched hand shining like a flag of truce—he hurried eagerly toward the Castle Brand carriage—the village postman.
Reaching the pavement before the lawyer's door, he handed Margaret a letter, and touched his hat deferentially.
"Thought I couldn't catch yer in time," panted the old man to Symonds, "and there's 'immediate' on the letter. I saw yer pass the post office, and knew it would save me the tramp to the Waaste if I could catch up. Good-day, sir."
He trudged away, and the coachman lounged about the pavement awaiting his mistress' pleasure.
The letter was written in the welcome hand of Dr. Gay, and Margaret devoured its contents with sparkling eyes.
Thus the good old doctor wrote:
"My Dear Miss Margaret:"I am writing this from——, in Berks, where I have stopped for an hour to dine. I have been very unexpectedly called away to Llandaff, to follow out this extraordinary case of yours, and am anxious to run it through before I agitate you; hence my sudden departure."When the worry of starting off was over, and I had time to think over your position, I realized how uncomfortable you would be under the sole charge of Davenport, who is always rather hard upon you, considering that you are in a precarious state of mind, so I thought of a very good plan for you. I require to stay in Wales for a week or so, and will stop at Caerlyon's Hotel, a very nice house, in Llandaff, where you might be quite comfortable. Suppose then, you run off from the colonel and come to me?"I hope you will be pleased with the idea, for you need a change badly. You can take Purcell with you and come by rail as far as Cirencester, where you take the coach. Depend upon it, I shall look for you every day. Think of it, and start to-morrow."Your obedient servant,"Rufus Gay."
"My Dear Miss Margaret:
"I am writing this from——, in Berks, where I have stopped for an hour to dine. I have been very unexpectedly called away to Llandaff, to follow out this extraordinary case of yours, and am anxious to run it through before I agitate you; hence my sudden departure.
"When the worry of starting off was over, and I had time to think over your position, I realized how uncomfortable you would be under the sole charge of Davenport, who is always rather hard upon you, considering that you are in a precarious state of mind, so I thought of a very good plan for you. I require to stay in Wales for a week or so, and will stop at Caerlyon's Hotel, a very nice house, in Llandaff, where you might be quite comfortable. Suppose then, you run off from the colonel and come to me?
"I hope you will be pleased with the idea, for you need a change badly. You can take Purcell with you and come by rail as far as Cirencester, where you take the coach. Depend upon it, I shall look for you every day. Think of it, and start to-morrow.
"Your obedient servant,
"Rufus Gay."
Margaret laid down the letter with a trembling hand, and put that hand to her forehead wildly. A dark suspicion had assailed her from the moment she began to read, and now she sat wrapped in perplexity and terror.
"Is this a snare for me also?" thought she. "Is this letter forged?"
She seized it again and pored over it with keen eyes; but its neat, cramped chirography revealed nothing. She had had many notes from Dr. Gay in precisely these finical characters.
The postmarks were all there upon the envelope, the sentences in the letter echoed the doctor's every day speech. The whole missive seemed toobona fideto doubt for a moment.
And yet she doubted and hesitated, and longing frantically to obey the welcome request which was couched in the familiar language of her old friend, she thrust the hope from her with suspicion and loathing.
Torn between two opinions she gazed with stony eyes into vacancy; while the sharp young lawyer eyed her inquisitively from his office window, and Symonds lounging about the pavement, ventured to whistle a few dreary notes to remind his mistress of his existence, and beat his arms across his breast, to suggest to her the bitterness of the wintry wind. She looked at him at last, with a resolute face, and commanded him to see whether Mr. Emersham was alone.
"I have nothing to hope for but death, if I stay here," mused Margaret, almost calmly, "and I can meet no worse if I obey this letter, and go away. I may as well have the benefit of the doubt, and go to Llandaff, since there is a possibility that this Letter is not forged. Yes, I can fear no worse fate than death, and that menaces me here every moment of my guardians' absence. I will obey the letter and go."
A dingy office boy, answering Symonds' knock, announced that Mr. Emersham was entirely disengaged, and Margaret alighted, and entered the office.
The lawyer hastened to salute her, and had her seated, and the door shut with much alacrity. She bestowed upon him one piercing glance; the shallow eyes answered her appeal for wise counsel in the negative; theblasémouth answered her hopes for protection also in the negative. The fast young lawyer was clearly not the man to whom she could trust her secret or in whom she could place confidence.
The fast young lawyer's smartly furnished office and diamond ring, spoke of a thriving practice; but his old office-coat, his idle hands clasped behind him, his reckless swagger and his insincere face spoke more reliable of shams, and shifts, and unscrupulous quirks to fill the empty purse. Clearly, Mr. Seamore Emersham was a man to be bought with money; and Roland Mortlake was the man to buy him; no disclosures must be made by Margaret Walsingham before him.
"Dr. Gay's letter said to me 'start to-morrow,'" thought she, "but this man's countenance as I read it, warns me to start to-night."
She dropped her distrustful eyes from his, and quietly opened her business.
"I am Miss Walsingham, of Castle Brand," she said, "and in the temporary absence of my own lawyer, Mr. Davenport, I have come to you. I am going out to Surrey presently, and I wish to leave some documents in your charge until I return. They are important papers, which I must not lose, and, since some accident might occur to them or to you, in my absence, I will prefer that you undertake the charge in company with some other person whose honor is considered unimpeachable. Can you name such a person?"
The lawyer opened his eyes very wide at his new client's strange request, but glibly ran over a list of the leading men of Regis as candidates for the honor of Miss Walsingham's confidence.
"We shall try the Rev. Mr. Challoner," she said, "and while I arrange the papers, your boy can carry him a note from me."
Mr. Emersham darted for stationery and wheeled a desk to his visitor with profuse politeness, and when the note was finished he sent his boy off at full speed to the vicarage with it.
During his absence Margaret wrote a careful account of her enemy's attempt upon her life the previous night; copied out the letter she had received that morning purporting to be from Dr. Gay, and concluded it with these remarks:
"Believing my life to be in danger so long as I remain in Roland Mortlake's vicinity, I resolve to obey the above letter, although I expect it to lead me into some trap where I shall lose my life. However, in the faint hope that I may be mistaken, I will begin my journey to Llandaff to-night at seven o'clock, Dec. 1862, and return in the seven o'clock evening train the day after to-morrow, when I shall come straight to Mr. Emersham's office, and reclaim this trust which I have put in his hands. If I do not return on the evening of the said day, I shall have met my death at the hands of Roland Mortlake, who personates Colonel St. Udo Brand, and I call upon Mr. Emersham to cause that man's arrest for my murder."
This finished, she ordered Mr. Emersham to draw up the form of her will, wherein she declared her wish that the Brand property should be sold, and the proceeds used to found a charitable institution in Regis, declaring, heedless, of Mr. Emersham's looks of astonishment, that St. Udo Brand being dead, she had resolved that an impostor should never occupy his place. In dead silence then she awaited the arrival of the vicar; the lawyer sitting opposite her gnawing the feather of his pen, and peering inquisitively at her.
Presently the blown office boy ushered in the vicar of Regis, a tall, snowy-haired divine, whose very presence diffused an atmosphere of safety around the persecuted woman.
She had already a slight acquaintance with him, and after a cordial greeting from him, she explained the favor she wished to receive, apologizing timidly for intruding her affairs upon him.
"My advisers, Mr. Davenport and Dr. Gay, are both away," she said, "and wishing to join the doctor, I feel that I must provide against any contingency which may arise. Will you, jointly with Mr. Emersham, undertake the charge of these documents for two days?"
Mr. Challoner readily consented. He had always liked the earnest-faced woman, who took her place so regularly in church, and whose praises were sounded so frequently by the lowliest of his flock.
Symonds was called in to append his name as one of the witnesses to Margaret Walsingham's will, Mr. Challoner being the other, and then the office door was shut mysteriously upon the lady and her two counselors, and gave them her instructions.
With her own hand she placed the document which condemned Roland Mortlake as St. Udo's assassin, his note-book, and her will, in an empty pigeon-hole of the lawyer's dusty drawers, locked it, and put the key in the old vicar's hand.
"Come here on Thursday evening at seven o'clock," she said, "with that key; wait until fifteen minutes past the hour, and if I do not arrive then, you must take out the document and read it. If you fail to act up to its instructions, a murderer will escape. I place the key in your hand, because foul play might be attempted upon Mr. Emersham to force him to betray my trust—foul play will not be attempted upon you."
They silently regarded the whitening face, when her womanly terrors struggled with the fixed, fatal look of vengeance, and solemnly promised to do her will.
Then the vicar shook hands and went away.
She looked at her watch. It was six o'clock. She had been nearly two hours in the lawyer's office.
He had long ago lit the gas and closed the shutters, and was waiting very patiently for her to conclude her business that he might go home to his dinner.
"I have one more letter to write, Mr. Emersham. Will you wait a few minutes longer?" said Margaret.
Again he poured out the assurance of the honor, etc.; and, with a wild smile on her lips, she wrote the following daring words:
"Roland Mortlake, or Thoms—which name you have least right to I cannot tell—I warn you, that if I meet my death while absent from Regis upon this journey, your doom is sealed!"I warn you further, that if I return safely at the end of the time I have set, your doom is sealed, if you are here to brave it. Your only safety lies in flight before I return; and even then I shall do my best to convict you of the murder of St. Udo Brand, which you have confessed in your pocket-book, which has this day been placed in safe hands—which will break the seals, if I am not alive to break them when I intend to return to Regis. If I perish, vengeance shall surely overtake the murderer of St. Udo Brand andMargaret Walsingham."
"Roland Mortlake, or Thoms—which name you have least right to I cannot tell—I warn you, that if I meet my death while absent from Regis upon this journey, your doom is sealed!
"I warn you further, that if I return safely at the end of the time I have set, your doom is sealed, if you are here to brave it. Your only safety lies in flight before I return; and even then I shall do my best to convict you of the murder of St. Udo Brand, which you have confessed in your pocket-book, which has this day been placed in safe hands—which will break the seals, if I am not alive to break them when I intend to return to Regis. If I perish, vengeance shall surely overtake the murderer of St. Udo Brand andMargaret Walsingham."
She bade farewell to Mr. Emersham at last, and entering her carriage, drove straight to a hotel near the railway station, from which she sent Symonds home with the carriage, and intrusted her letter to him with directions to give it to the steward to deliver to the colonel; and warnings to Symonds not to allow himself to be questioned by Colonel Brand.
A note to Mr. Purcell conveyed her command that he would attend upon her journey; and cautioned him against giving Colonel Brand an inkling of his intentions.
In a quarter of an hour the steward of Castle Brand was ushered into her presence.
"All ready, Purcell?" demanded the lady.
"Quite ready, Miss Margaret."
"Where is Colonel Brand?"
"Still at the castle, miss."
"Did you give him my letter yourself?"
"I did, miss."
"What did he say?"
Mr. Purcell shook his head and looked disgusted.
"You must tell me what he said, Purcell?" insisted Margaret.
"He said nothing that I'd be proud to repeat, Miss Margaret," said Purcell, sourly.
"He up and cursed you like a madman, and said, 'Let her go if she dares!'"
"What else?"
"Ordered out his horse."
"Intending to find me before I started—do you think?"
"Yes, miss; but I left him cross-questioning Symonds, who wouldn't give him any satisfaction."
"Very good. Now we must hasten, or we shall miss the train."
She hurried on her traveling-cloak, and, accompanied by Purcell, descended to the station, where the train was ready to start and got on board in time.
From behind her thick crape vail she watched every passenger who crossed the platform to enter any of the long line of cars, and the flaming street-lamps revealed every face distinctly.
Porters hustled each other; newsboys shouted their papers; ladies made blind sallies to the wrong class car and lost themselves in the throng; gentlemen with umbrellas, carpet-bags and plaids elbowed their way into empty compartments; but Roland Mortlake was not among the mob.
She had slipped the chain and got free.
The train glided out of the shed and set itself to its night's work, and Margaret sank back to her seat with a sigh of relief.
"I have outwitted him," she thought. "His calculations upon my expected movements are all astray. I have taken him by surprise. I shall find Dr. Gay in Llandaff, sure enough. I did right to go in search of him."
On rushed the train through the darkness of night.
Purcell, who sat beside his mistress, spread a plaid over the back of her seat, and pinned it about her shoulders, grumbling that she would take her death of cold in the drafty car; and presently she fell fast asleep, with her head resting against the jarring panel.
Purcell, too, dozed off, and dreamed that he was in his own cozy room at Castle Brand; and only awoke with the banging of a door ringing in his ears and the soft hand of his mistress clutching his arm.
The train was gliding on again, but it had paused one minute at a little country station, and a man had entered.
He was muffled in a huge fur coat, and seated himself near Margaret, with a grunt of satisfaction that he had a whole seat to extend his legs upon.
Margaret regarded him keenly, and he returned her gaze with stolid indifference. Purcell growled out his disapprobation of the new-comer's placing his clumsy foot against his mistress' long dress, and the man serenely changed his position, wound a scarlet muffler about his copper-colored throat, and settled himself for a nap.
He was a tall, stout man, with a heavy jaw, coarse lips turned doggedly down at the corners, and piercing steel-blue eyes; his face was red and his hands were large and brown; but stupid, dull, and sleepy, he seemed unworthy of a second thought; and Margaret sank into a deep reverie and forgot him.
On they glided; through dim villages, amid bare-branched wealds, and over creeping rivers, which shone like misty mirrors in the faint starlight, resting from time to time, for a few minutes, at the country stations.