"No, you wretch," said Margaret, "I shall not give up the pocket-book which condemns Mortlake. I simply defy your threats, and shall be well guarded in future. My doubts are answered. I know what Mortlake's new order was; there it is," she cried, tossing the villainous-looking scrawl upon the table, "and I defy it! He offers me my life in exchange for my proofs, and I scorn his offer, I would rather bring such a fiend to justice than live a happy life, knowing that I had suffered him to elude his just punishment."

She called Mr. Caerlyon in.

"Who brought that letter?" asked she.

"A ferry rakket poy, matam," returned he.

"Is he waiting for an answer?"

"Yes, inteet, matam, ant playing with a crown-piece he says the gentleman gave him to holt his tongue."

"Tell him that there is no answer, and send for a constable to follow the boy, and to seize the man who sent him."

"I'll to that, my laty," cried the landlord, with spirit, and disappeared with great alacrity.

In half an hour Mr. Caerlyon and Mr. Purcell came to announce to her that both their pursuits had been fruitless; the villain had disappeared as completely as the mirage which is lifted in air, and Purcell's warrant and police force came too late.

The fire flashed from the indomitable woman's eyes; she crested her head.

"We shall prepare for him, then," said she, with calm courage, "and meet him suitably when he intrudes upon us. In an hour we shall start upon our journey back to Regis, Purcell, so you must go and refresh yourself.

Mr. Caerlyon, you shall do me the favor of calling upon the chief of police and handing him a note from me."

The steward retired to obey her command, and Caerlyon cheerfully promised to do anything for such a brave lady, and waited for her to write her letter.

It was a letter of instructions; she wished the chief of police to send two of his sharpest detectives on the road to Cirencester a half hour before she and her servant started, that they might thereafter travel in company without rousing the suspicion of O'Grady by leaving Llandaff together. She explained the case, and suggested the need of the detectives, disguising themselves, that they might protect her throughout the journey, without frightening away the ruffian, who would doubtless attempt her life once more before she reached Regis. As soon as she had finished, Caerlyon carried off the letter with all due secrecy.

In an hour the return coach from Cirencester jolted up to the hotel, and Margaret and her escort took their places inside, alone. There were some men, as before, on the top, but O'Grady discreetly kept out of sight, and since his black horse still munched his oats in Caerlyon's stable, everybody thought that the travelers were leaving their enemy behind them.

At the first inn two farmers stopped the coach and climbed in beside Margaret. A respectful bow to her and Purcell revealed them as her protectors, the detectives.

The liveliest imagination could never have discovered in these heavy-faced, slow-spoken, and comfortably m.u.f.fled farmers two lynx-eyed emissaries of the law, on the track of a felon. Their disguise was admirable.

When more pa.s.sengers crowded in, the two farmers grunted out agricultural jokes to each other, or read the county paper, or apprised the intrinsic value of each snow-capped barn, and white-ridged field, and huge wheat-stack they pa.s.sed with a zest and eagerness positively infectious, until every one inside was drawn into the argument, and a few shrewd questions had been asked and innocently answered, which disclosed the fact that a man in a fur coat had galloped up the road three-quarters of an hour ago upon a gray horse.

"Thought Caerlyon's mare was missing when I went to his stables,"

muttered one detective to the other; "he has got off before we left the town. All right; we'll catch up."

But they did not catch up that night; and although the two officers slept in a room across the pa.s.sage from Miss Walsingham's, in the hotel at Cirencester, they saw no one attempt either to communicate with her or to molest her.

So it remained all during the next day's cold and weary journey, the masked detectives carefully kept close by the threatened young lady, and furtively watched each pa.s.senger who entered or left the car; but the ruffian was not to be traced, his menace to Margaret was but an empty vaunt; her precautions seemed to have effectually routed him.

At seven o'clock that Thursday evening the train glided into the Regis station-house, the red lights glimmered on the platform, the crowd jostled, surged, and receded; and when the way seemed clear, one of the detectives got out to fetch a cab for Margaret before she should leave the car.

While he was gone a close carriage rolled into the shed, and the driver, touching his hat to Margaret, whom he could see at the car window, offered his services and his cab.

"This will do," said she to Purcell. "When Adams brings the other cab, our friends will need it to go to their hotel. Time is pa.s.sing, and I must keep my engagement with Mr. Emersham."

The remaining detective got out and stood a yard or so in advance of the cab-driver, who was opening his coach-door; and Purcell a.s.sisted his mistress out of the car to the platform, and then turned round and stooped to pick up her traveling-bag from the planks where he had thrown it.

In a moment the long-expected crisis came, so long delayed, so startling now when they thought it was too late to fear it longer.

A man darted out of the shadow of the station-house, and sprang like a panther on his victim. He threw the stooping Purcell violently upon the ground, seized Margaret, and hurried her with a giant's strength to the door of the cab, into which he tried to force her.

"Get in with you, or I'll blow your brains out!" hissed his desperate voice in her ear.

Her shriek of terror had scarcely escaped when the detective, coolly stepping forward from his watch, dealt the ruffian a blow on the back of the head with his h.o.r.n.y fist, which felled him like an ox, and the leveled pistol fell from his relaxing hand and snapped off with the concussion, lodging its bullet in the bottom panel of the nearest railway car and startling the cabman's horses so violently that they plunged off the platform with the cabman clinging to the reins.

A railway porter ran up to the scene of the a.s.sault, and held the half-stunned O'Grady while the detective secured him, and Purcell, having gathered himself up, with aching bones, led the agitated Margaret into the station-house.

By this time the mob had a.s.sembled, and were crushing each other unceremoniously to gain a glimpse of the prisoner, who lay cursing and blaspheming on the wooden floor, with his conquerer grimly standing over him, until Adams rattled up in the cab he had been in search of and shared the onerous duty of jailer.

Margaret, glancing shudderingly out of the station-house window, saw the wretched man pa.s.s on his way to the police station, his captors on either side urging him to hasten. His hands were tied behind him, his florid face was yellow with despair, his steel-blue eyes glared with fear; a more abject picture of crime and ruin could scarce be conceived.

And when this wretched vision had vanished, another took its place. A writhing, white face flitted, specter-like, from out of dim shadows, and peered with staring eyeb.a.l.l.s after the arrested man, and a scowl of fury, terror, and despair descended on that devilish brow.

The next instant he, too, had melted into shadow, and was lost amid the throng.

"Roland Mortlake," whispered Margaret, who was shivering as if she had seen a phantom. "He has learned the truth. Great Heaven! he will escape."

She stepped to the door and called the steward, who had gone to open the cab-door.

"Go instantly in search of Mortlake," she cried; "he has just pa.s.sed the window; you must not permit him to escape. I will drive to Emersham's law-office myself."

Away ran Purcell after two constables; and Margaret hurried into the cab, and, undeterred by one heart-beat of compunction, she set herself to compa.s.s her enemy's utter ruin.

For pitiful, kind, and great-hearted as she was, she could never suffer a murderer to escape. No, not even to buy her own safety.

Margaret Walsingham alighted from the carriage at the door of Mr.

Emersham's law-office, and stepped into the room with the mien of a Semiramis, flashing-eyed, carmine cheeked, and inexorable.

One glance around the room showed her the nimble young lawyer, and the trembling old clergyman gazing white lipped into each other's faces, the folded paper on the table between them, the locked pocket-book, and the will; and the hand of the clock on the mantle-piece pointed to the fifteenth minute after seven.

"Thank G.o.d! she is here," murmured Mr. Challoner, solemnly.

"I have come back," said Margaret, "to break these seals and to expose a felon. Hasten, or the felon will escape."

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAINS OR THE GALLOWS.

Mrs. Chetwode, sitting in her room at Castle Brand at half-past seven of the night, heard a dreadful racket of horse's hoofs on the frozen court below; and, looking down from her window, she saw the colonel throwing himself from the saddle, and striding up the front steps in red-hot haste.

A thundering knock at the door announced the humor of the gentleman, and the meek old lady hurried into the upper hall to see him when he entered the lower, murmuring to herself with mild astonishment: