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 d.a.m.ning evidence of his own imposture.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MARGARET'S PERIL.

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 a _battle 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 a _billet-doux_ to 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 sc.r.a.ps in her hand. "No, what are _his_ a.s.surances? Lies to lull me to sleep. Let me drive my foe to open enmity--let me goad him to his ruin, or mine, if G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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, and _I 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 ma.s.sive 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.