"Heaven preserve me!" interjected the housekeeper, turning her back upon the unholy vision; "I do think Colonel Brand the wickedest-looking man ever I saw. Heaven send poor Miss Margaret a better husband."

Meantime Margaret, struck with a mortal panic, was walking fast down the road to Regis, quite unmindful of the calls of etiquette which prescribed for her the part of hostess to the visitor.

She left the Waaste with its grim, bare trees and its battlemented towers behind her; she left the lodge, clinging to its nook of ivy wall, behind her; she tried to shake off the crawling terror which oppressed her, and drank in the freshening gusts of wind as if her throat had been constrained by an iron hand.

"What have I dared to do?" she thought. "Have I thrown the gauntlet of defiance at him? And if he takes it up, what will become of me? But to imagine he could personate the brave St. Udo! Reptile!" she exclaimed, with a suddenly clenched hand, "I could crush you beneath my heel: You have no right to live, you monster!"

Faster she walked, although she was so thin and weak with her recent ill health that her limbs trembled beneath her; and in the urgent alarm which had taken possession of her, she marched straight through the village to the law-office of Mr. Davenport.

"My dear lady," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed that functionary, arising in consternation, "what brings you here? I hope nothing annoying has occurred; but you do look very ill."

"Mr. Davenport, will you send for Dr. Gay? I have something of importance to communicate to you both."

"Certainly--certainly. I'll send immediately. No, I'll go myself. You won't object to sitting by my nice warm fire here until I come back? And I'll lock you in, if you like."'

"I don't object."

In a very short time the two executors entered, both breathing hard, and each having an anxious air about him.

"Good day, my dear Miss Walsingham," said the little doctor, drawing a chair close beside her; "I hear you have something on your mind to tell us. I think you might have sent for us, instead of walking here in your state of health; it scarcely looks well, my dear, especially--especially as it is you, my dear."

"I cannot help it. What I have to say outweighs in importance the trivial question of whether I come to you, or you visit me. You both, I have no doubt, were surprised at the manner in which I insisted on leaving your house, Dr. Gay, and taking up my abode at Seven-Oak Waaste?"

Both executors admitted that they had been surprised, very much surprised, the lawyer amended.

"I had a secret reason for my course of action," continued the ward, looking from one to the other, "which I did not feel at liberty to divulge until I had a.s.sured myself whether the motives that actuated me were just or not. I am now a.s.sured that they were, and I desire to divulge them to you, that you may prevent a fraud."

"My dear," said the lawyer, "isn't all this going to lead us to Colonel Brand?"

"It is going to lead you to the man whom I left at Seven-Oak Waaste."

"Is the colonel at Seven-Oak Waaste?"

"Yes."

"And you here?"

"In spite of etiquette--yes."

The two executors looked at each other as if prepared to hear any insanity after this.

"Have you made a deed of gift of Seven-Oaks to St. Udo, and are you here for more testimonials?" asked Mr. Davenport, helping himself to snuff.

"You have not fathomed my secret at all," answered Margaret, in a repressed tone, though she was in a state of high excitement; "when I willfully left the shelter and the protection of your house, Dr. Gay, it was to fulfil that clause of the will, which says, 'Should St. Udo Brand or Margaret Walsingham die within the year, the property shall revert to the survivor.' I left your house to take possession of Castle Brand."

The executors stared.

"But, my dear girl, St. Udo is not dead!" said Dr. Gay, imploringly.

"Good gracious, what do you mean?" sputtered the lawyer. "You may take the property by refusing to marry the colonel, or you may keep the property by quarreling with him and making him glad to leave you, but you can't take the property on the plea of his death, when he is by your own showing sitting in Castle Brand at this moment."

"That brings me to my accusation," cried Margaret, almost wildly; "I have convinced myself that the person who has come here in the semblance of St. Udo Brand, to woo me, and to be in time the master of Seven-Oak Waaste, is a villain who has weighed well the risks he runs, is, in short, an _impostor_!"

"Good Heavens!" gasped the physician.

"Your proofs, madam," demanded the lawyer, with another, and a larger pinch of snuff.

CHAPTER XV.

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

"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 rehea.r.s.ed, 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 gla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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.