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Faithful Margaret: A Novel

by Mrs. J. M. Simpson · English · Gutenberg #36360 · 614,203 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Faithful Margaret: A Novel

Author: Mrs. J. M. Simpson


        
Release date: June 8, 2011 [eBook #36360]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITHFUL MARGARET: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan and the Online
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file was produced from images generously made available
by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions
(www.canadiana.org))









                          FAITHFUL MARGARET.

                              _A Novel._

                       ROBERTSON'S CHEAP SERIES

                   POPULAR READING AT POPULAR PRICES.

                          BY ANNIE ASHMORE.


    "Vengeance for any cruel wrong
      Bringeth a dark renown;
    But fadeless wreaths to her belong
      Who calmly bears it down;
    Who, scorning every mean redress,
      Each recreant art abjures,
    Safe in the noble consciousness,
    _She conquers who endures_."


    TORONTO:
    J. ROSS ROBERTSON,
    CORNER KING AND BAY STREETS.

    1880.




FAITHFUL MARGARET.




CHAPTER I.

A DYING WOMAN'S COMMAND.


She was dying--good old Ethel Brand, the mistress for half a century of
the hoary castle which stood like an ancient cathedral in the midst of
the noble estate in Surrey, Seven-Oak Waaste.

No need now of these whispering attendants, and that anxious little
physician; she would not trouble them more. No need for these grim
medicine vials, marshaled upon the little table near her couch; she was
past mortal needs or mortal help; her face, set in cold repose, seemed
glistening with supernal light, while waiting for the fatal kiss of
death.

And over her bent a woman, breathless, pulseless, motionless, as if
carved from stone, listening, with straining ear, for each slow,
rattling breath; watching, with great, glistening eyes, for each
darkening shadow over the noble face--Margaret Walsingham.

No high-born dame was she; no fortunate next-of-kin, watching with
decorous lament for the moment of emancipation from her weary wait for a
dead woman's shoes. Only Mrs. Brand's poor companion, Margaret
Walsingham.

Four years had she ministered to the whims, the caprices, the erratic
impulses of that most erratic of all creations, an eccentric old woman;
and exalting the good which she found, and pardoning the frailties she
could not blind her eyes to, her presence had become a sweet necessity
to the world-weary dowager, who repaid it by unceasing exactions and
doting outbursts of gratitude; and there had been much love between
these two.

Paler waxed the high patrician face, darker grew the violet circles
beneath her heavy eyes.

Margaret clasped her hands convulsively.

"Will she go before seven?" whispered she.

Old Dr. Gay stooped low and listened to the labored inspiration.

"Going--going fast," he said, with faltering lips.

A wail burst from the crowd of servants standing by the door; sobs and
tears attested to the love they had borne their dying mistress.

"Hush!" whispered Margaret. "Do not awake her."

"They'll never wake her more," said Dr. Gay, mournfully.

She turned at that with terror in her eyes; she laid a small, strong
hand upon the doctor's arm and clung to it convulsively.

"She must live to see St. Udo Brand," said she, in a low, thrilling
voice. "She must, I tell you--it is her dearest, her last wish--it is my
most earnest prayer. Surely you will not let her die before that wish is
fulfilled?"

She gazed with passionate entreaty in the little doctor's face, and her
voice rose into a wail at the last words. He regarded her with helpless
sympathy and shook his head.

"She can't live half an hour longer," said Dr. Gay. "She'll not see St.
Udo Brand."

A fierce shudder seized Margaret Walsingham from head to foot. The blood
forsook her lips, the light her eyes--she stood silent, the picture of
heart-sick despair.

She had often appealed to Dr. Gay's admiration by her faithfulness, her
kindness, her timidly masked self-sacrifices; she appealed straight to
his heart now by her patient suffering, unconscious as he was of its
cause.

"I will do what I can to keep up her strength," he said, approaching the
bed to gaze anxiously again at the slumberer. "I will try another
stimulant, if I can only get her to swallow it. Perhaps the London train
may be here by that time."

"Thank you! oh, thank you!" murmured Margaret; gratefully. "You little
know the desperate need there is for Mrs. Brand seeing her grandson
before she dies."

Tears welled to her eloquent eyes, her lips trembled distressfully, she
waved the servants from the room and followed them out.

"Symonds, I wish you to hasten immediately to Regis for Mr. Davenport,
the lawyer," said she, when she had dismissed the other servants down
stairs. "Give him this note and drive him back here as quickly as you
can drive."

She dropped her note into the groom's hand, and watched him from the
oriel hall window, as he hurried from the court below, out into the
deepening twilight, from the road which went to the pretty little
village of Regis, some two miles distant.

She stood in the waning light, watching for the lawyer's coming, and her
thoughts were wild and bitter.

She had a _doom_ to confront, as terrible to her as unsought martyrdom
is to the quailing victim of a blinded hate; a _doom_ from which she
fain would court grim death himself if he would open his gates to let
her escape; a humiliating and revolting _doom_ from which she recoiled
with vehement dislike, every nerve in her high-strung frame quivering
with horror.

Ethel Brand had ever been capricious in her life, but of all the mad,
impulsive freaks which her lonely heart had led her into, her last
caprice was the most ill-advised, the most disastrous.

Margaret Walsingham had answered Mrs. Brand's advertisement for a
companion four years previously, when she was a pale, timid girl of
twenty, clad in orphan's weeds, and scarce lifting her deep, earnest
eyes to the inquisitive gaze of her patroness; but her quiet, grave,
soulful character had strangely fascinated the haughty old lady, and
from the humble post which she had gone to Castle Brand to fill, she
quickly rose to be the prime object of all its mistress' dreams, to be
beloved, and indulged, and admired as no living mortal had ever been by
that closely-guarded heart, save St. Udo Brand. Margaret Walsingham was
a sea-captain's daughter. Up to her twelfth year she had sailed the seas
in his ship and looked to him for society; and not till then was she
sent on shore to be educated. Still the stout captain had been ambitious
for his daughter, and had taken care that her education, when it did
commence, should be thorough, comprehensive and elegant in all its
branches; so that when after eight years of ceaseless learning on her
part, and ceaseless voyaging on his, he proposed going home to England
and retiring with his daughter upon a handsome fortune, she was well
fitted to adorn the society he intended to surround her with. But the
ill-starred captain went down in a Biscay gale when also within sight of
home, and with him went his whole life's savings, leaving his Margaret
fatherless, homeless and fortuneless.

And that was why she answered Mrs. Brand's advertisement.

St. Udo Brand was an officer in the Coldstream Guards, now in London. He
was the only son of Mrs. Brand's only son, Colonel Cathcart Brand, long
dead.

Cathcart Brand had been a sad rake, lawless, reckless, and a natural
spendthrift. The one act of worldly wisdom which he had ever achieved
was his marriage, late in life, with a lady of noble birth, whose
ambitious leanings and insatiable vanity had scourged the easy colonel
up into the highest social circles, and in some measure covered his
_blase_ reputation with her gilded arms.

St. Udo Brand was said to have inherited his father's determined
extravagance united to his mother's magnificent tastes; his father's
careless, dashing, unscrupulous character, and his mother's proud,
cynical, bitter temperament. At twenty he was the glory and terror of
his chums, the idolized of women, and the ideal of his grandmother's
fastidious soul. At thirty he was a man to be feared only, a polished
gentleman with a questionable history--a universal scoffer, a
world-weary atheist, with a subtle, insidiously sweet influence, a sad
and embittered soul, and a heart long closed against all holy
whisperings of better feelings. And still his grandmother clung to him
with a pathetic belief in his nature's nobility, and ignoring his wild
and hopeless life, looked forward with love-blinded eyes to a possible
future for him of worthy achievements. So, because she loved this man,
and trusted in the goodness of Margaret Walsingham, she had elected hers
to be the strong, soft hand to lead him back from ruin and to point him
a better way. She had vowed St. Udo Brand and Margaret Walsingham should
marry.

"You shall lure St. Udo back from the gates of hell," quoth the
grandmother, with an inspired enthusiasm. "You are just the woman to
impress that high and royal heart with a true sense of your own pure
goodness; you can lead him captive by a secret power; you can lead him
where you will. You shall dispute with vice and fatal atheism for that
magnificent soul, and when you have routed your foes, you shall be
rewarded by his life-long gratitude, and his gratitude is more precious
far, my girl, than is the languid love of millions of other men. My
Margaret, you are twenty-four, strong, buoyant, pure-minded; my grandson
is thirty-four, world-weary and careless. Your fresh enthusiasm shall
stir his withering heart-strings and wake his slumbering belief--he
shall admire you, study you, and love you."

"I dread your grandson, and tremble at the idea of ever meeting him,"
was Margaret's shuddering answer.

"Yes, I regret not having caused you to meet before," complacently
observed Mrs. Brand. "You will soon overcome these childish tremors.
Would you not like to be the mistress of Castle Brand, and the owner of
Seven-Oak Waaste, my proud Margaret?"

"No, madam," breathed Margaret, fervently; "never as Captain Brand's
wife."

"Ah--hem! We shall see, we shall see," quoth the lady, serenely, and
dropped the subject.

Soon after that she was smitten with her death sickness, and at the last
she called her poor Margaret to her, and with plaintiff affection
boasted to her of what she had done for her.

"You shall never be homeless again, sweet soul," murmured she, with
glistening eyes. "I have willed this castle to you if St. Udo refuses
your hand."

"Madam, for Heaven's sake revoke that will!" prayed Margaret,
vehemently. "Do not bequeath such misery to him and to me!"

"Pooh--rubbish! He will deserve to lose all if he refuses the woman I
choose for his wife," cried the autocratic dame.

"I thank Heaven that I have no beauty with which to buy his love!" cried
Margaret, with proudly flashing eyes. "He will not sue for me. But,
madam, you must revoke your will. I cannot live to injure your grandson
so deeply."

"You are a foolish girl. I tell you, Margaret," in rising wrath, "that I
will not have my estate, the richest in all Surrey, squandered away in
gambling, horse-racing, and worse extravagance by St. Udo. I had much
rather give it all to you than to his mad associates. He has spent his
patrimony, and his mother's fortune went soon after her death. He has
only Seven-Oak Waaste to stand between him and penury. So will he not,
think you, mend his life, and become a man worthy of Margaret
Walsingham, if it was only to come into possession of his own
inheritance? Tears, my darling? Come, you give my love a poor return."

"Oh, madam--oh, madam!" sobbed Margaret, "blot my name out of your will,
if you value my happiness."

Mrs. Brand watched her in bitter disappointment, then turned her face
away and wept a few angry tears.

"Send for St. Udo," said she, curtly. "If he refuses your hand before my
face, I shall change the will, but not unless he does so."

Margaret telegraphed to London for Captain Brand, telling him of his
grandmother's sudden illness and her desire to see him.

Captain Brand wrote a polite and indifferent reply to Margaret
Walsingham, expressing regrets, sympathy, and excuses, and promising to
run down to Surrey some day next week.

Margaret wrote an entreating note, setting forth the urgency of the case
and the certainty that Mrs. Brand was dying; and Captain Brand
telegraphed a dry, "Very well, I will be at Regis to-night."

And all day long the dying woman sank lower, and forgot ere long the
things of earth, and hour after hour went past, bringing only wilder
grief and anxiety to the hapless Margaret.

So she was still tied to the wehr-wolf of her loathing fancy, and until
St. Udo Brand chose to come to his grandmother that tie was
indissoluble.

Margaret Walsingham was aroused from her hopeless meditations by the
appearance of Symonds driving Mr. Davenport, Mrs. Brand's lawyer, into
the court-yard, and she descended swiftly to meet him in the library.

Mr. Davenport entered--a tall, thin, wiry man, with beetling brows and
irascible eyes--and cautiously shut the door.

"Is Mrs. Brand conscious yet?" he asked.

"She is asleep," said Margaret. "We fear that she will not live to see
the heir. Now, Mr. Davenport, I have asked you to come here that when
Captain Brand arrives you may be upon the ground to change the will
legally. Dr. Gay hopes that she may awake to consciousness for a few
minutes before death. Wait here, if you please, until you are summoned."

Without another word she left the library, followed to the door by the
lawyer's keen eyes, and ascended to the death-chamber.

Dr. Gay sat by the dying woman, wiping the death-dews from her brow; her
eyes were open and were eagerly fixed upon the door. Margaret entered,
they flickered up into a transient brightness, her cold lips faintly
smiled.

"You know me, do you not?" murmured Margaret, kneeling beside her and
laying her cheek fondly on the pillow beside her friend's.

The cold lips framed an eager "Yes," the groping hand sought hers and
pressed it gratefully.

Margaret Walsingham's tears fell fast; she kissed the wan cheek of her
dying patroness and smoothed her white tresses back from her clammy
brow.

"God be with you, my good Margaret!" muttered the old lady, brokenly,
"you have been a good friend to a lonely woman. You shall be rewarded
when I am gone."

A wave of anguish swept over Margaret's plain, proud face, her voice
grew beautiful with the soul's voiceless eloquence, her soft eyes
pleaded wistfully, her shy lips quivered beseechingly. The old dowager's
glaring eyes dwelt on her with gloating admiration.

"You will make a noble lady," muttered Mrs. Brand, with a fond smile.
"Come, tell me you are satisfied with my arrangements for you?"

"No, no, I cannot meet St. Udo Brand--and I will not stand between him
and his own property. I cannot, indeed!" cried Margaret, with a
heart-rending sob.

The words rang out sharply in the hushed death-chamber, and the little
doctor shifted uneasily in his chair, and stopped stirring the stimulant
he was preparing, to gaze from one to the other--the lady and her
companion. Twice Mrs. Brand essayed to speak, but her trembling lips
refused to articulate a word, and her faint eyes sought Margaret's in
dumb appeal.

"Say but one word before Dr. Gay and Mr. Davenport," pleaded Margaret,
wildly. "Say that you wish the will to be canceled, and your grandson to
come into his inheritance without incumbrance. For the sake of the love
we have borne each other, grant my request."

"Unsay those words, my darling," wailed Mrs. Brand. "You give me a
parting stab I never thought to receive from you. Oh, my darling, can't
you save St. Udo from ruin for my sake?--do you grudge to do something
for my sake?"

"No, dear madam, I would be glad to die for your sake," cried Margaret,
lifting up a brave, love illumined face; "but not this--oh, Heaven! not
this."

Mrs. Brand closed her eyes with a pang of mortal anguish.

"Have I been mistaken in my Margaret?" she uttered, brokenly. "Is she
not the high, heroic soul I deemed her?"

Tears rose from the heart that thought never to feel another earthly
pang, and rushed from the eyes which she thought to have closed in
peace; and Margaret's tender heart accused her sternly for her own
self-care in this most pitiful hour.

"Do not fear for your grandson," said she, eagerly, "I shall not suffer
him to be defrauded."

Mrs. Brand turned a piercing gaze upon her.

"You must do your best to win St. Udo's love," she whispered, earnestly,
"else you will defraud him of his rights, and his ruin will be at your
door."

Poor Margaret's head sank on her breast, her heart grew heavy as lead.
Her last supplications had been made, and vainly. Death was stealing
closer to his feeble victim.

Where, where was St. Udo Brand that he came not in time to save her and
himself from this fatal chain which his grandmother's death was to rivet
round them both?

The trampling of horses hoofs reached her ear. She started to her feet
and listened breathlessly. Yes, through the still April eve stole those
welcome sounds, nearer and clearer. An arrival at Castle Brand.

Margaret took her dying friend in her arms and tenderly kissed her cold,
trembling mouth, and laid her on her pillow again.

"Captain Brand has arrived," said she, softly. "I shall bring him in at
once."

She stepped to the doctor's side--he was still stirring the stimulant
with a nervous hand.

"Give it to her quickly," she whispered; "the heir has come."

She left the chamber, her pulses throbbed with a vague sense of evil,
her limbs seemed heavy as lead; and as she crept down the great vaulted
staircase, lit by pale, flickering tapers, she thought that her own tall
shadow writhed and shuddered before her like the phantom of a deadly
tear.

The great hall-door stood open, the servants were waiting decorously in
the hall to greet the heir, and Purcell, the old steward, stood out on
the threshold bare-headed, his silvery locks glistening in the broad
moon's light.

Margaret Walsingham stepped beside him and eagerly looked for St. Udo
Brand.

Two horsemen were cantering across the Waaste; the night wind bore the
fragment of a gay _chanson_ to the doors of Castle Brand. Under the
Norman oaks they rode softly over the velvet turf, now snatched from
view by the dense hazel coppice, anon seen plainly on the brow of this
gentle curve.

Nearer, nearer--home at last to Seven-Oak Waaste. They slackened their
pace as they approached, and gazed admiringly at the ancient castle,
then observing a lady in the doorway, curved into the court and
dismounted.

"Is this St. Udo Brand?" whispered Margaret to the steward.

A tall man had approached to the foot of the granite steps, leaving his
companion standing between the pawing horses, holding a bridle of each,
and serenely smoking a cigar--a tall man wrapped in a Spanish
riding-cloak, who gazed about him with a dark, lowering eye.

"Can't say, Miss Margaret," muttered the steward; "if it is, he's a
sight the worse for wear; but I haven't seen him for well nigh onto
seven years."

The old man descended stiffly to greet the heir.

"Welcome to the Castle, captain," said he, sourly. "It's well you come
at last, you're but just in time to see her alive."

The stranger removed his hat and disclosed a thin, wary face, just now
wreathed in courtly smiles.

"I have not the honor to be Captain Brand," he said. "I am merely his
messenger."

"What? Heh? Captain Brand didn't come after all?" cried Mr. Purcell,
recoiling from the dark, smiling face.

"Yes, he came; he will remain in Regis to-night, and when less fatigued
will pay his devoirs to Mrs. Brand. He made me the bearer of a note to
Miss Walsingham. Can I see her?"

The steward turned; the man looked up, his black, flashing eyes rested
upon her. She stood not three feet away, looking down upon him, her
white, electric face startling him in the chill radiance of the summer
moon, her long garments sweeping in regal folds about her magnificent
person, her blue-black hair curving in rich waves under the lace
mantilla she had thrown over her head--a woman to mark, to remember.

She stretched forth a long, white hand, with a vehement gesture.

"Give it to me," she said. "I am Miss Walsingham."

The man forgot his courtly smile and his wary watchfulness; his
artificial polish cracked in all directions and exposed a terribly
startled man. He gazed at Margaret Walsingham with arrested eye, and his
hands strayed unconsciously to his wrists as if they would find spectral
shackles there.

The envelope he held dropped to his feet, he stooped with a muttered
oath, and recovering it, reached it to her outstretched hand.

She did not retire to read the missive, the moonlight saved her the
necessity, and the man stood awaiting an answer, as she tore the note
from its crested envelope, and in a moment had mastered its contents.

A blaze of indignation spread over her brow and cheek.

"Heartless trifler!" ejaculated she, bitterly, and read these words
aloud to the steward:

     "St. Udo Brand presents his compliments to Miss Walsingham, and
     his thanks for her tearful invitations to join her in the
     melancholy duties of sick-nurse. Feeling that his vocation does
     not lie in soothing the nervous sufferings of the aged, he begs
     Miss Walsingham's disinterested heart to hold him excused; and
     confidently commends his dear grandmother to the delicate care
     of her pet and _protegee_ until such time as she can assure him
     that his presence will not bring on another attack of the
     vapors upon Madam Brand. Hoping that you will both enjoy a good
     night's rest, and that you may feel justified in receiving me
     some time to-morrow, I remain yours,

     "ST. UDO BRAND."

"Captain Brand must come instantly," cried Margaret, and turned sharply
upon the quailing ambassador. "Do you hear, sir?"

She paused with a lady's instinct--a lady's aversion to address an
unknown man.

"Roland Mortlake, Miss Walsingham," murmured the stranger coming out of
his fog.

"Go tell Captain Brand that Mrs. Brand is dying--that she has but a few
minutes to live, and that he must come instantly if he would hear her
last words. You will remember, Mr. Mortlake? And say the will must be
changed, or Captain Brand will be ruined. Tell him that. Now go, for
Heaven's sake!"

The stranger turned his wrapt scrutiny of herself into a keen and crafty
attention of her words. He repeated them after her, with a significant
pause after each clause, as if he longed to wrest the uttermost moiety
of a meaning from her scant expressions.

"Symonds shall accompany you with the carriage, and bring Captain
Brand," said Margaret. "Send him, Purcell."

The steward trotted away to dispatch the coachman, and the pair were
left with each other.

The man on the lowest step and the woman on the highest gazed fixedly in
each other's faces. His fierce, envious, and inquisitive; hers cold,
distrustful, and unflinching.

In that silent interview their souls stood forth, each revealing to the
other, and doomed to future recognition under the most perfect masking
which rascality could assume to compass its end, or purity devise to
hide from peril.

Then Roland Mortlake bowed to the earth, and, striding back to his horse
and his companion, uttered a terrible execration.

The other tossed his cigar over the low stone wall into a tulip bed,
and, springing to his horse, followed his angry comrade as he galloped
away.

"_Gardez-tu_, my friend," cried he, breezily. "You English take great
news sourly, _ma foi!_ you curse Mademoiselle Fortune herself when she
smiles upon you the blandest."

His clipped English rang out gaily on the summer breeze, and those
careless words, listened to by Margaret Walsingham on that eventful
night with unheeding ears, came back one day through the mists of
forgetfulness, and took their place in the wild drama with strange
significance.

Once more Margaret returned to her dying patroness, and met her eager,
questioning eyes with mute looks of anguish.

Utterly silent now, she held her poor friend's fluttering hand, and
wiped the foam from her voiceless lips, and the kind old doctor turned
away his brimming eyes, that he might not witness the harrowing
spectacle of the woman's love and grief while performing these last
gentle ministrations.

The housekeeper sat at the foot of the bed, shaking with her sobs. A few
of the old retainers of the household grouped near the door, stifling
their lamentations as best they might. But never a word spoke poor
Margaret, as she watched her last and only friend sinking from her
clinging arms into the mysteries of death.

The minutes sped; the doctor laid his watch upon the table; Margaret's
eyes left the pallid face of the dying to watch its swift circling
hands, with a tightening of the heart-strings.

"I give them thirty minutes to go and return from Regis," she murmured
to the doctor at last. "Will she live thirty minutes?"

Dr. Gay answered nothing; but the vampire Death, fanning the sinking
mortal into immortality, answered, by her convulsive face and twitching
hands.

"_No!_"

Ten, fifteen minutes passed, still the shrouded chest rose and fell in
intermittent respirations; still the cold fingers sought Margaret's;
still the swimming eyes turned on hers with the dumb agony of the last
pang. Twenty minutes, twenty-five, twenty-six, the closing eyes flew
wide open, the relaxing chin took its comely place once more, the
toiling breath ceased in a long, full sigh.

She looked long and tenderly at her poor Margaret Walsingham, then
beyond her into the shadowy world she was entering, and a wondering
smile broke dazzlingly over her whole countenance.

"Lift me up," she sighed, like a weary child.

Margaret lifted her to her breast.

"Higher," whispered she. "Ah! this is rest--rest!"

And as Margaret lifted the smiling face to her shoulder, the last thrill
ran through the kind old heart, stopped, and she entered the everlasting
gates.

So she went on her dim, mystic journey, not sped by the hands of her
kindred; nor mourned by the hearts of her kindred; uncomforted and
alone, save for the love of Margaret Walsingham--good, impulsive,
generous Mrs. Brand.

Margaret laid her down and closed her sightless eyes; then arose from
her finished watch and turned away.

She looked blankly about; her eyes fell upon the watch still lying upon
the table, and noticed the hand resting upon the thirtieth minute, and
immediately the clang of horses' hoofs and the roll of the carriage
wheels stole to her ear. She put her hand suddenly to her forehead like
one in physical pain; it fell to her bosom, and pressed convulsively
there. She uttered a piercing cry, flung up her hands, and fell forward
like one stabbed to the heart.

St. Udo Brand had come at last, and he was too late.




CHAPTER II.

READING OF THE WILL.


Mrs. Brand, in her lead coffin, in its rosewood shell, was slumbering in
the stately vault of her ancestors, and Mr. Davenport held in his hands
the last will of her whose will had in her life ever been law, and
glanced around to see that all the legatees were there.

St. Udo Brand, the tardy heir, was present, quietly waiting to hear the
reading of the will with that decorous gravity with which we wait to
bear our honors.

Dr. Gay was there, because his departed friend had requested him to do
so.

It was in the library; the walls of books glittered in calf and gilt in
the pleasant April sunlight; the glass door was opened upon the perfumed
garden walks; and the twitter of the busy birds came sweetly over beds
of crocuses and early blossoms to break the silence.

"Where is Miss Walsingham? Shouldn't she be here?" asked the doctor.

"I don't think she'll come down, sir," said the housekeeper.

Mr. Davenport cleared his throat.

"Better send for her, eh?" said he to Captain Brand.

The heir-expectant turned a dark face, disfigured by impatience, upon
the lawyer.

"It cant make much difference," he answered, dryly. "She can hear her
part of it again. Go on."

"On the contrary, it makes all the difference in the world," retorted
the lawyer, with unexpected heat; "and I refuse to break these seals
until Margaret Walsingham is present."

"Oh!"

St. Udo Brand raised his level brows and subsided into stolid
indifference.

A messenger carried a line from Mr. Davenport to Miss Walsingham's room,
and carried down again a message from her, which promised her presence
in a few minutes.

Some time passed in irksome silence, during which the captain beat the
devil's tatoo on the table, and darted mocking glances at the important
Mr. Davenport.

Then the sound of a slippered foot crossing the black and brown hall
floor sent the captain sauntering to the remotest window, there to watch
the struggles of a sparrow caught in the wire framework which protected
the espaliers; so that there was no one to welcome Margaret Walsingham
in, save old Dr. Gay, who compassionately pressed her cold band as he
led her to a chair, and with his heart pitied the captain's future
bride.

She passed, with heavy eyes cast down, to a seat behind a bronze statue
of St. George and the dragon, where the deepest shadows lurked, and kept
the giant warrior between her and that distant window until the will
should be declared.

Then the lawyer cleared his throat, adjusted his spectacles, and read:

     "THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ETHEL BRAND.

     "SEVEN-OAK WAASTE, SURREY, 1862.

     "_To all whom it may concern_:--I, Ethel Brand, being on this,
     the twenty-eighth day of March, in the year of our Lord one
     thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, in infirm health, yet in
     possession of sound mind and memory, and all my natural
     faculties, hereby declare this to be my last Will and
     Testament, and that I revoke, rescind, and disannul any and all
     Wills, Testaments, or Codicils previously made by me.

     "To my dear grandson, St. Udo Brand, only son of my late son,
     Cathcart Brand, all other lawful issue being dead, I bequeath
     the whole of my personal property, estates, houses, and moneys
     as held by me and in my name, together with the Seven-Oak
     Waaste estate and house known as Castle Brand, on one
     condition:

     "That he shall, not sooner than one month, and not later than
     one year, take to be his wife, and the legal mistress of Castle
     Brand, my beloved and faithful friend, Margaret Walsingham, who
     held the cup of love to the lips of an otherwise forsaken old
     woman, and for four years served her without thought of reward.

     "Should my grandson, St. Udo Brand, fail to marry Margaret
     Walsingham within twelve months after my demise, I bequeath all
     my property, lands, houses, and moneys as above mentioned, to
     Margaret Walsingham, to be enjoyed by her until the day of her
     death, and to descend to her children, or next of kin, forever.

     "Should St. Udo Brand or Margaret Walsingham die within the
     year, the property shall revert to the survivor."

     Then followed generous bequests to various charitable schemes,
     and annuities to the old servants of the castle, the whole
     concluding in the clause:

     "I appoint, and do hereby declare Rufus Gay. M.D., my
     trustworthy physician, and Andrew Davenport, Esq., my faithful
     lawyer, to be the executors of this, my Will, bequeathing to
     each the sum of five thousand pounds, as an humble token of my
     regard for, and gratitude to them; and adjuring them to see the
     contents of my Will faithfully carried out.

     "All of which I confirm by affixing this my signature, in the
     presence of these witnesses.

     "ETHEL BRAND.

     "RUFUS GAY, M.D.

     "ANDREW DAVENPORT, Attorney-at-Law."

The lawyer laid down the will upon the table again, and turned a
searching glance upon each of the principals. Again he cleared his
throat, which had grown husky at the last clause referring to himself,
and it bore an admonitory, as well as a reproachful import to the ears
of Captain Brand.

"Miss Walsingham," blurted Dr. Gay, rising nervously, "no one has
presented you to Captain Brand. May I?"

"Sir, be pleased to lend your attention for a moment," cried Mr.
Davenport, pugnaciously.

So Captain Brand was pleased to lend his attention. He wheeled from his
dark reverie, and marched, with the reckless tread of the desperado
going to the cannon's mouth, up to the group, and his flashing eyes
boded no tenderness in their first scathing glance towards his future
bride.

"Miss Walsingham, my dear, this is Captain Brand."

The doctor stepped back, and the lady glided from her shadowy nook; and
the rich gold lights from the tinted panes fell full upon her.

"Ye gods, what a Medusa!" muttered the captain, staring.

"We have met," said Margaret Walsingham, panting and white-lipped, her
wild gray eyes burning with red heat, and meeting his sneering gaze with
loathing, "we have met, sir, by no will of mine."

A loud, insulting "Ha! ha! ha!" burst from Captain Brand.

The harsh, grating laughter, eloquent with scorn, devilish with malice,
incredulity, and fury, turned the girl's outraged protest into
speechlessness.

She wrapped her long crape garments about her hands, and the beautiful
figure of Margaret Walsingham--her one charm, and a perfection it
was--vanished from the incensed eyes of St. Udo Brand.

"Well, what think you of woman's wit after this?" cried he to the
executors when the door had closed. "Who says a woman can't scheme, and
cleverly, too? What fool ever called hers the softest sex?"

"I must request of you, as the executor of this will," said Mr.
Davenport, slapping it loudly, "is bound to do--to apologize to the
young lady whom you have just now insulted, for your treatment of her."

The captain's magnificent eyes were blazing with anger, and his brow was
contracted with the scowl of a baffled demon, but at the plucky lawyer's
proposition, he threw back his head and burst into another shout of
laughter that made the ceiling ring again.

"What! trust my unwary heart to the red-hot fingers of a Torquemada? She
would dissect it leisurely for its vulnerable spot, and probe that with
spiteful blade. It needed not my insults, as you call them, to turn her
venom against me. Did I not read it in the loathing eyes and shrinking
figure before ever I opened my mouth? Am not I the one obstacle between
her and the fortune she has lain in wait for during four years? She can
afford to take insults from me; they will not hurt her. They are my
tribute to her talent as a fortune-hunter."

"I must disabuse your mind of all unjust suspicions against Miss
Walsingham," cried Mr. Davenport, meeting the captain's frowning eyes
with as fierce a frown; "she has never schemed for this disposition of
your grandmother's property. On the contrary, to my extreme surprise and
disapprobation, she vehemently implored that she might be left out of
the will altogether, and sent for me an hour before Mrs. Brand's
decease, hoping that you might arrive in time to prevail upon Mrs. Brand
to revoke the clauses concerning her."

"Save me these rhapsodies, friend," returned the captain; "those
heavenly qualities to which you direct my lover-like regards, but whet
my appetite like that of the ravening wolf. Let me make a mouthful of my
bliss; but I warn all officious fingers to keep out of my pie."

"You mean by that, I suppose, that you will submit to the conditions of
the will?"

"I mean nothing of the kind, my good sir. To the infernal shades I
consign your scheming adventuress."

He rose from his lounging attitude with another of those bitter and
cynical bursts of laughter, and dashing open the glass door, stepped out
upon the gravel walk to saunter, his hands behind him, past the old
moss-grown fish-pool, into the shrubbery.

The sun shone on the stately form and on his purple black hair. It
wavered between leafy banners on his angry face, so dark with ominous
clouds, and merciless with the dance of inward passions.

And yet it was a grand picture of desolation, that lofty countenance in
its wrath. The fires of a thousand passions had graved these deep curves
of bitterness, and marred the once genial mouth with the never absent
sneer, and perverted an intellect once pure and stately.

No wonder that the two men, who were watching him in silence as he
deliberately slashed down lilies with his cane, shuddered when they
thought of the poor girl who stood between him and Castle Brand.

Margaret sat in her room, dumbly enduring the first humiliation of her
life. Her humble soul had been outraged--disgraced. That cruel,
insulting laugh still rang in her ears. Her cheeks flamed with shame;
her eyes were suffused with hot tears. She could do nothing but sit in a
trance, and busy-brained, revolve it over and over until she trembled
with the agony of wounded pride.

Her sense of womanly honor had been trampled upon; her unapproachable
self-respect had been bandied about by impure hands. Margaret felt that
she was forever disgraced. To have been thrown at his feet, to suffer
his eyes to scorn her, to see the wicked mouth sneer--the reckless head
thrown back--to hear the muttered "Ye gods! what a Medusa!" to be
stunned by the loud "ha! ha!" to be consorted with a monster of
dissipation, such as he was--and to be scorned. Oh, cruel Ethel Brand:
to force a friendless girl into such a position! Why had she not rather
turned her from these castle doors, four years ago, than reserve her for
such a fate as this?

Margaret began to see that she was terribly in Captain Brand's
power--that if he were rascal enough to propose to her, she could
scarcely in honor refuse him, and keep him out of his property. She also
saw, with vague, prophetic eyes, a vision in the distance, of _stealthy
hands stretching toward her life in either case_.

The ruddy sun, slipping down behind the cliffs two hours later, looked
in at Margaret, who, with her door securely locked, sped about with
motions of nervous energy, packing a small valise of clothes to take
with her upon a sudden journey.

She had determined to blot herself by her own act out of Ethel Brand's
will, by disappearing alike from friend and enemy, and hiding herself in
some far distant corner of England, until Captain Brand had stepped into
secure possession of Castle Brand.

She believed her life to be in danger, for she had wit enough to know
that there were a thousand ways of quietly putting her out of the way
before the twelve months were over, provided that St. Udo Brand was
villain enough to avail himself of them, and of that she had little
doubt; so she made all haste to leave him master of the field.

At ten o'clock of the night she flitted down the broad oak and walnut
stairs, with her valise under her cloak, and stole out of the library
glass door, under the very nose of sleepy Symonds, the footman, and
under the night shades of the Norman oaks.

A man met her on the broad Waaste, where the somber pines stood one by
one like specters, and Margaret sharply screamed when he came close to
her and peered into her face.

"I think this is Miss Walsingham?"

"Oh, yes."

He was the letter-carrier from Regis, and held a white missive in his
hand.

"Special, it says, miss, so I took it over to-night, instead of waiting
for to-morrow's batch, for, says I to myself, 'Young wimmen likes to get
their letters.' Night, miss."

"Good-night, Mr. Wells. Thank you for taking so much trouble this dark
night."

She stood listening to his retreating footsteps, and fingering the
embossed seal of the letter. It seemed to be the Brand coat of arms; and
yet who would use this crest when all the Brands were dead but one?

A light still burned in the lodge, down by the great gates, and she hung
her valise on the iron railing and lifted the latch.

"Let me come in a moment?" she asked, putting in her pale, disturbed
face.

"Lord! is that you, Miss Margaret!" cried the lodge-keeper, pushing his
horn glasses upon his forehead to look at her with his watery eyes.
"Come in, and welcome."

"I was out walking, and met the letter-carrier, he gave me a letter,
which I cannot wait longer to read. Let me read it here?"

She sat down, with the tallow candle between her and these bleared old
eyes, and opened her letter. Yes, it bore the Brand crest with its
fierce inscription. There was but one surviving Brand in the world, and
his name signed Margaret's letter:

     "MADAM:--Accept, with my profound congratulations, Ethel
     Brand's bequest of Seven-Oak Waaste, and all acres attached,
     and my bequest of your own choice of a master to the place
     mentioned. I have withstood the exquisite temptation of sharing
     your bliss, lest I should revive the pretty drama of 'Paolo
     Osini,' who strangled his wife in his first embrace; and with a
     pious blessing on the manes of poor Madam Brand, who likely
     enough got choked by a parasite, I depart to a land where
     oracles do say there are no fortune-hunters.

     "Yours, admiringly,

     "ST. UDO BRAND."

With this second bitter insult crushed in her hand, and terrified tears
washing her cheeks, Margaret Walsingham went back, in the surging night
wind, to Seven-Oak Waaste.




CHAPTER III.

EVIL FOREBODINGS.


Mid-ocean, a steamer was laboring on her way, beneath a sky like
glittering pearl, arching over a waste of phosphorescent billows, and
with a crispy breeze behind her.

The ladies were in their berths, the gentlemen paced the deck, and
beguiled the time by discussions many-themed.

But St. Udo Brand, with his hands behind him and his back to all, gazed
over the sea to the distant horizon line.

A grim satisfaction illuminated his eye, though the ever-present sneer
still marred his lips, as, deep in unaccustomed reverie, he examined his
position on all sides.

"Inscrutable are thy ways, oh, Fortune!" mused the captain. "Thou hast
given Seven-Oaks to the humble, and cast the haughty from Castle Brand
into outer darkness, where there is grinding and gnashing of teeth. Yet,
wherefore, oh, sand-blind Fortune! hast thou rolled the hypocritical
saint in my bank-notes, and hung golden offerings upon her Medusa head,
while I, the honest scoundrel, am stripped naked to supply the ovation?
Well, doubtless, she has worked harder for it than ever I could, poor
devil! Now for a name and fame, and may be fortune, in yon republic
behind the shoulder of this world of waters! And, who knows, I may be
happy yet, with my little white cat, instead of the sorceress of yonder
castle."

Back and forth the groups of promenaders passed the solitary man, who
thus faced his fortunes with satiric stoicism; but no one thought of
interfering with his reverie, for Captain Brand had a name for
exclusiveness on board the Bellerophon. He may have had a name for some
more interesting quality, too, if one might draw conclusions from the
earnest scrutiny which two of his fellow-passengers were just now
bestowing on him.

A little gentleman, wrapped in a cloak, lounged upon the deck, regarding
the captain through his eye-glass with an air at once inquisitive and
complacent; and a little behind him stood a tall, elderly man, in
servant's livery, fixedly regarding the captain also.

At last the little gentleman rolled off the bench upon his little legs,
which were--low be it whispered--somewhat crooked, which is, to say the
least, best adapted to equestrianism, and nimbly tripping up to Captain
Brand, accosted him with the sunniest air imaginable:

"_Bon jour, monsieur_, a ver' good day to you, my friend. Why vill you
turn the back upon our merry company? Throw care to the dogs; so"--with
a flourish of the hands--"now he is gone! Be happy, my good friend!"

Captain Brand gloomed down upon the little intruder.

"If you want anything of me," said he, ironically, "do me the infinite
honor to be plain and brief."

The stranger stepped back, threw up his hands, and became dignified.

"Monsieur, you English are a vulgar people. You English do not know how
to treat gentlemen of the world. _Par la meese!_ You know nothing,
except to drink and keep silence. No, monsieur, I want nothing of you
but courtesy, and since you have it not to give, _pardieu! bon jour_."

With inimitable grace, he bowed his adieu, and was retreating, when the
captain's genial laugh arrested him.

"I beg pardon, sir," cried St. Udo, "for the national want. Pray remain,
that I may study you up. With such a model before them, who could remain
a boor?"

"Monsieur," cried the little man, delightedly, "you are von wag. I like
you, monsieur. I present myself. I am called the Chevalier de
Calembours; to you I am Ludovic--at your service _mon ami_."

"Chevalier," returned the captain, "I return the confidence. I am called
Captain Brand, of the Coldstream Guards--have just sold out, and to all
I am merely St. Udo Brand--at your service."

They shook hands and lit cigars.

The captain felt irresistibly drawn to the little chevalier; he liked
him amazingly from the first.

He was handsome; he had a square brow, brown eyes, ruddy cheeks, firm
mouth, enormous nut-brown mustache, and a full, glossy beard. He was
attractive; there was intelligence in the bold forehead, penetration in
the beaming eye, a purpose in the closely-fitting lips, and withal a
playful, airy, insolent, cheery frankness which illumined nearly the
whole face.

He stood revealed, brisk, and ready for business, the nimble Chevalier
de Calembours.

"You are en route for America? So am I--we will be comrades," quoth the
chevalier.

"With all my heart! Yes, I go to join the army. I shall either find fame
or death in the American war."

"Bah! I go to court the jade Fortune. She has jilted me of late. I would
feed my wrinkled purse with American dollars, _ma foi!_ that purse is
famishing just now."

"You are not pure French?" demanded the captain.

"_Mon Dieu!_ no," rasped monsieur, with a shrug. "I am cosmopolite,
yes."

"Where is your birthplace?"

"The Hungary, _mon ami_. Have been in Vienna, in Geneva, in Turin, and
for the rest--everywheres."

"You omit England?"

"Ah, I did not live in England. I saw it, no more."

"Yet you speak English well."

"I am flattered. I have the habitude of the languages; they count me an
expert. Insisted on giving me the post of Professor of the modern
languages in the University of Berlin."

"But it was not as a knight of the ferule that you won this mark of
distinction?" laughed the captain, touching a fluttering badge which
depended from the chevalier's button-hole.

"_Ma foi! non!_ I am Magyar, and that is to say patriot and warrior in
one. I combat under the gaze of our glorious Kossuth; but there are
times when even valor himself must fly, and the sword of the brave must
change, in the stranger's land, to the plowshare, the pen--anything to
keep the wolf from the door. But the ferule, the pen, the pestle, I
abhor. I hear the blast of the trumpet, I return to my first loves. I
cross to Algiers. I fight my way up till I win my _grade_, and this
bagatelle. Nothing more there to pick. I looked around; the rays of
glory are beginning to gild the long slumbering west. I leave the
ancient world, and sinking my illustrious personality, I forget that I
am Count of the Order of Santo Spirito, Turin; that I wear the ribbon of
Legion of Honor, and am to throw myself among these Republican hordes,
and to fight knee by knee with the mob. Enough!" he concluded; "to you I
shall be but Ludovic, _mon ami_. Come--do you play?"

"I play, chevalier. I am at your service," answered the captain.

The chevalier preceded his new friend to his state-room, and ushered him
in with "effusion."

A man rose stiffly from the table, where he had been reading, and made
way for the chevalier and his guest.

A tall, elderly man, in servant's livery, who stooped and slunk softly
about, whose sallow, brown face grew white when the captain scanned it
curiously, whose thin, gray hair and immense overhanging gray mustache
showed traces of cares rather than of years, and whose shifting,
shrinking eyeballs ever sought the ground, as if their depths held
emotions which the man must hide on peril of his life.

A sudden shudder seized Captain Brand; a thrill ran sickening through
his heart, which had never so thrilled before. He turned his back--he
knew not why--in hatred upon the chevalier's valet.

Was it a perception of evil, slow creeping toward him from the gloomy
future--slow, but sure to come as death himself?

Pshaw! what necromancer's dream was this? The captain, scoffing, threw
it from him, and forgot the haggard old servant.

"Thoms, we play _ecarte_," aspirated the chevalier, in his rough English
(he invariably spoke French to the captain). "Bring wine and cards, and
wait upon us."

They plunged with zest into the game, and passed many hours in its
intricacies. The chevalier protested that he had found an adversary
worthy of him, and Captain Brand swore that for want of more piquant
sauce a game of euchre every night with Calembours might answer to
flavor the insipidity of the voyage out to New York.

But the careless captain might have noted, too, had he considered such a
worm worthy of notice, that whatever he did--talk, sing, drink wine, or
muse--the secret, shifting eyes of Thoms, the valet, never lost a
movement, but hour after hour watched him with the unearthly intentness
of a blood-hound.

While the captain slept that night in unconscious security, the
Chevalier de Calembours, with a complacent chuckle and a flowing pen,
wrote down in his diary, these famous words:

"'_I came. I saw, I conquered!_' Monsieur Brand promises to be excellent
sport though little hope of pigeoning him, _en passant_. Yes, he has
keener scent than monsieur, my patron, gave him credit for--he won't be
led altogether by the nose. But pouf! who is it that will not be gulled
by Ludovic de Calembours?"

Thoms, too, in secret, and with wary ear pricked for possible
interruption, bent, in the seclusion of his own state-room, over a tiny
green note-book, jotted down some things he wished to remember, then
thrusting away his little book in a secret pocket, he rubbed his long,
lean hands together in stealthy triumph, and laughed long and wickedly.

Five days passed; the airy chevalier held his own in the sour captain's
esteem, and they mutually approved of each other.

They leaned over the taffrail together, Thoms a step behind, and watched
the glittering city of New York, glowing in their eyes, as the steamer
plowed its way between green and pleasant shores to gain it.

Crowds waited on the pier--sailors, civilians, and soldiers mixed in
frantic confusion.

The chevalier examined them through his glass with smiling nonchalance;
but Captain Brand looked over the scene with thoughtful brow.

"What is monsieur's programme?" chirped the chevalier. "Does he dally
with Fortune's train, or does he brush by her robes and seize the
treasure which she guards? Shall _mon ami_ live the short and merry life
of conviviality with me in New York, or shall he choose the short and
beastly bad career of a soldier?"

St. Udo Brand laughed bitterly.

"What is my life worth to me without fame to gild it?" growled he. "I
have no gold to make it shine."

"_Bravissima!_" shouted the chevalier, clapping his hands; then, with a
smile which just showed his long teeth in a hungry arch, "I, too, will
go southward, because, that to me my life is very much worth, and I will
do bravely to gild it with--gold. We will be brother colonels, _mon
ami_, and Thoms--what shall you do?"

Thoms' evil face beamed with intelligence.

"I'll follow you masters as long as you _live_," uttered the smooth
voice, humbly.

"We shall fight, by gar, for glory!" cried the chevalier. "At least, we
shall say so. But each has his motive pardieu, and a sensible motive is
mine. Ah, life is nothing without illusions, as Mendelssohn says."

"Nothing indeed," smiled the silent lips of Thoms, "nothing indeed."

Thus these three chose to walk together the road which had been
apportioned them by that secret Power behind the scene, bound close
together by Circumstance's chain, yet sundered in soul by walls as deep
as dungeon walls, and the dusty banners, and golden rewards, and
whistling balls of the battle-field beckoned to each with a separate
welcome.

"Here you will win glory," they cried to St. Udo Brand.

"Here you will win gold," they whispered to Calembours.

"We promise you _death_!" they sighed to Thoms.

So the three men followed the beckoning hand, and entered the contest.

Some weeks passed. It was their last evening in New York. On the morrow
they would be en route for the army.

Captain Brand and the Chevalier de Calembours had staid at the same
hotel, and were, of course, tolerably confidential with each other.

Thoms divided his attentions, with marked impartiality, between his
master and his master's friend, and lost no opportunity of ingratiating
himself with the cynical captain.

This evening Captain Brand was writing letters; the chevalier was
serenely smoking on the balcony. Thoms silently plodded through the
packing of their traveling-bags in a corner.

"One, two--there are three letters," said the captain, throwing down his
pen. "Thoms, you dog, post these."

A scornful smile was on his lip. He picked up a photograph from his desk
and pored over it eagerly. The cold, superior smile melted from his
scornful mouth; the keen raillery vanished from his eyes; he regarded
the pictured face almost in despair.

Thoms, creeping behind his chair to reach for the letters, took a keen
survey of the card he held.

It was the face of a young and lovely girl which returned St. Udo's
yearning, questioning gaze with a sweet, free smile.

Thoms took the letters, and standing for a moment in the hall, greedily
scrutinized the envelopes.

"Andrew Davenport, Esq.," "Rufus Gay, M.D.," and "Lady Juliana Ducie,"
whispered the spy.

He passed into his own room, locked the door, and did not emerge for at
least ten minutes; and when he did, he stole out with the letters in his
hand, casting startled looks around, as if he fancied he had some cause
to fear.

The next morning the two new colonels left New York at the head of their
men, and halted not until some three days subsequently they found
themselves within one day's march of the grand army.

The way lay through forests of hickory, planer, and tulip trees, between
tobacco and cotton plantations, and over deep, yielding morasses, where
the giant gourd sprang up to catch the bending cypress branch, and the
wild vine barred the way.

St. Udo, chatting carelessly to his inferior officer, turned suddenly in
his saddle to look for Thoms, and met his quailing eyes scarce two yards
behind.

His head was bent to catch every word uttered by St. Udo; his eyes
gleamed like glow worms in the dusk; he was the picture of a man with
some dread watch to keep.

"Back, fellow!" cried St. Udo, sternly. "What do you want here?"

Thoms fell back with humility.

"Beg pardon, colonel--I was listening to some sounds ahead," muttered
he.

His coolness was manifestly forced--his excuse was manifestly a lie--yet
the haughty Englishman only swore at him and turned from him as one
avoids the worm in the path.

He resumed his idle conversation with his officer, and passed the time
away in light jests and piquant anecdotes of a life neither tame nor
simple, and quite ignored the inquisitive Thoms behind him.

But Thoms did not forget to strain every faculty of hearing and seeing
while he had the chance. Never did lover drink in love vows of his
beautiful betrothed, as did the gray-faced valet his colonel's stories;
never did the worshipers of that star of song, Jenny Lind, analyse each
tone, each delicate inflection of her voice in the day of her most
glorious effulgence, as did Thoms the tones of St. Udo Brand; and when
the soldier, weary of speech, sank into mute reverie, the old man's
glowing eyes stole over his stately figure, measuring its height, its
contour, its carriage, with anxious care, as if but one man lived upon
the earth for him, and that night he might be slain.

At midnight the little detachment paused to rest.

The place they chose as favorable to their purpose was the wide-spread
grounds of a ruined mansion-house.

Merrily the camp-fires blazed up, paling the shimmer of a myriad of
soaring fire-flies, and sparkling through the murk like a broken lava
stream.

The chevalier left his company to visit his friend's tent, and the
brothers-in-arms exchanged cordial jests and friendly converse, while
Thoms, hovering over the camp-fires and boiling the coffee, peered
inquisitively at the pocket album which St. Udo was showing his friend.

"How that old wretch listens to our conversation," exclaimed St. Udo,
laughing, as the valet retreated for a moment beyond earshot, for
another armful of fagots. "He is like Diggory behind his master's
chair--every story moves him to laugh or cry."

"Pardieu! he will play eavesdropper, will he?" hissed the chevalier. "We
shall see."

"Here he comes, hurrying back to the charmed circle," said St. Udo,
"with straining ears and a face which looks 'just like a stratagem,' as
Madam Noblet says. Where did you get the sorry rascal, Calembours?"

"A friend sent him to me on the morning we parted for New York,"
muttered the chevalier. "Peace--he is here."

His nervous tremor did not escape the vigilant eye of Thoms, who grimly
took his post near the pair, and handed them their viands with
obsequious celerity.

St. Udo amused the chevalier by more anecdotes, and presently in their
hilarious enjoyment they forgot the haunting demon in the shadow of the
tent, till St. Udo, happening to glance that way over his shoulder,
stopped short and stared in speechless amazement.

There sat Thoms, leaning against the tent, as St. Udo leaned against the
mossy rock by the fire, throwing back his shaggy head as St. Udo threw
back his, gesticulating with his long, brown hand as St. Udo waved his,
his lurid eyes fixed in a hound-like gaze upon St. Udo Brand, aping
every motion like a haggard shadow of himself.

The Chevalier de Calembours, following St. Udo's stare of astonishment,
caught the man's antics mid-air, and burst into a volley of oaths in
every known language.

"The man's possessed! My life on it, he is a lunatic!" cried St. Udo,
laughing till the tears stood in his eyes. "To see him roll his head,
and wave his hand, and mouth after me my very words. Ha! ha! ha!"
shouted St. Udo. "Thoms, you dog! are you rehearsing a part? What part?"

Thoms was scrambling to his feet, and standing like a scared hare in act
to fly. His cheeks were white, his lips withered, his very hand trembled
so that he slipped it into his bosom to hide its shaking.

"_Diable!_ what mean you? Out with your excuses!" screamed the
chevalier, passionately.

"I--I am--I have been an actor," stammered the old valet, with
chattering teeth and a glare of hatred. "I was doing a Dromio of Ephesus
with Colonel Brand for model."

"With me for your Dromio of Syracuse, you varlet?" mocked St. Udo. "Pity
we are in truth not twin brothers; you might be less of a paradox to me
then."

Thoms suddenly turned his convulsed face away. It was well for him he
did not permit the angry chevalier a view of his half-closed, furious
eyes, blazing like two corpse lights.

"Away with you to rest," ordered Calembours. "We have had enough of you
for to-night, by gar! A little more might be bad for you."

Away sneaked the shivering wretch, and lay down among the soldiers at a
neighboring camp-fire, and, apparently, fell fast asleep. The brother
colonels abused him with mutual heartiness for a while, and then parted
to seek their own slumbers.

Toward the morning a yellow mist drifted from the neighboring cypress
swamp and brooded over the camp. St. Udo stirred in his sleep at the
touch of its clammy breath, and opened his eyes.

And over him hung a face, its wolfish eyes fastened upon his, a thievish
hand creeping into his bosom, almost touching him with his gray hair,
almost stifling him with a damp hand held an inch above his nostrils.
Thoms knelt beside him!

In a moment St. Udo had sprung to his feet and caught him by the throat.
A book fell from the long brown hand--his little pocket-album.

"What the duce do you want, confound you?" thundered St. Udo.

Thoms lifted his weary old face supplicatingly, and held up his shaking
hands for mercy.

"Are you a thief, or an assassin?" demanded St. Udo, releasing him as
unworthy of his wrath, in his age and weakness.

"I--I thought you were dead, colonel," stammered the wretched old
creature. "You lay so still that I--I felt your heart to find if it
beat."

"Another lie, you old fool," mocked St. Udo. "What did you want with my
private album? Answer me, sir."

The old man's speechless look of mock wonder at the album lying upon the
ground, his thin, gray locks damp with perspiration, his abject terror
and abject helplessness, all appealed to the haughty St. Udo's
forbearance. He pushed him contemptuously away with his foot.

"Get up; you are merely a skulking villain. You are not worth my ire!"
exclaimed St. Udo. "And mind that you never approach me again, on peril
of your life."

"Don't--don't order me away. Let me stay near to watch--to save you!"
whined the miserable Thoms.

"Confound safety! if I am to get it at the hands of a worm like you!"
shouted St. Udo. "Why do you haunt me day and night? Why do you run upon
my trail like a sleuth-hound? The next time I detect anything like this,
by all the gods, I'll shoot you down!"

Away stole the trembling Thoms, and was met and stared at by the little
chevalier, coming to have an early breakfast with his friend.

"Another raid into Thoms, _mon ami_?" questioned he, anxiously.

"Who is that devil?" cried St. Udo, passionately.

"Heaven knows! _ma foi_. I wish we did," quoth the chevalier.




CHAPTER IV.

A LIFE SAVED.


The letter of St. Udo Brand astonished the executors of Ethel Brand's
will; and their chagrin was intense when Miss Walsingham decisively
informed them that they must find means to convey the property to the
rightful heir, as she would never become mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste.
They earnestly tried to combat her "quixotic" resolve. But she remained
immovable. She would, she said, become a teacher, a companion in some
family, or even a stewardess aboard ship--anything but the mistress of
Seven-Oak Waaste.

And so, at an early hour next morning, Margaret Walsingham, with all her
worldly possessions in a small valise, and bearing letters of unmeasured
recommendation from Dr. Gay and Mr. Davenport, entered a railway
carriage. She was on her way to London, in the hope of getting a
situation that would take her out of the country.

She sat absorbed in reverie until the train passed at a village station,
and a lady, escorted by a young naval officer, entered the car and took
the seat opposite Margaret. Then with a shriek the train dashed on
again.

Margaret's eyes lingered wistfully on the blooming face, the sylph-like
form, the pure golden hair of the beautiful and bright young being
before her. How she loved beauty, and for its sake loved this rare
creature. She gazed through a mist of admiring tenderness, and forgot
her troubles.

And then a piercing shriek of engines filled the air; a few seconds'
hard snorting and unsteady jolting, a mighty crash, a sense of being
hurled against the sky, utter chaos and oblivion.

       *       *       *       *       *

A bricklayer, clad in a stained smock, the color of mud, was placidly
eating his dinner in the midst of his family, when a scared face
appeared at the open door, and a woman in torn black garments beckoned
to him.

"Please come immediately," panted the woman at the door. "Life or death
depends upon your haste."

She sped away at that, and the bricklayer followed her rapid feet which
scarce seemed to stir the dust of the road and breathed as if he carried
his load full on his back.

They had a quarter of a mile to go before they reached the scene of
disaster, and on the way John Doane elicited the following particulars
from his excited guide.

The up train from London and the down express had run into each other by
a few seconds on the part of one of the conductors. She knew nothing
beyond the crash of the engines meeting, until she found herself upon a
bank--some fifty feet upon the upper side of the track uninjured, though
at first stunned. In looking for her fellow-passengers she found the
carriage in which she had been, lying at the foot of the bank, bottom
up, and she supposed the train had hurled on for some distance with the
other carriages.

By the time she had explained thus far they had arrived upon the scene.
It was melancholy enough to warrant the woman's white looks and
faltering tongue.

Here and there a figure half raised itself and sank to the ground again
with rolling head and helplessly outstretched hands. Detached pieces of
wheels, and windows and twisted frames, and shattered roofs strewed the
line. A first-class carriage lay upside down, its wheels idly revolving
in the air, and a mass of golden curls were clustered on the broken
frame of one of the windows.

"Force open the door if you can; that lady is crushing to death," said
the young woman kneeling by the golden mass and raising a heavy head,
which they shrouded.

The man found a beam and began methodically to batter in the door. It
was done, the strange jumble of crushed and sleeping humanity were
unlocked from their prison, and the two succorers made their way in,
treading warily upon the gayly-painted ceiling, and both bent over a
figure clad in silken draperies of diaphanous sheen.

"Lift that crushing head gently. Ah, it must be too late. There, there
she is free. Put her head upon my shoulder--so. Now I will carry her
myself; clear a way for me that I may not trip and fall with her. Spread
that cloak upon the grass--so. Ah, is she dead?"

The Samaritan under orders assisted to lay the burden down, and then ran
for some water, with which he quickly returned, and began to sprinkle
copiously the insensible lady.

The young naval officer, who looked rather ghastly, now approached
Margaret.

He knelt down and gazed with horror upon her set face.

"Good gracious! I am afraid she's gone, poor girl," he ejaculated.
"Julie--Cousin Julie! Do you think she is dead, madam? Oh, Julie, dear,
speak to me!"

"She is not dead," answered Margaret. "If we could have her removed to
some house, there might be some help for her."

"A poor man's hut ain't for such as her," said the bricklayer, drawing
his hand over his heated face; "but she's welcome to the best bed in
it."

"Thank you. We shall convey her there at once," replied the young man.

They constructed a hasty litter of branches, and, calling a brawny-armed
boy, Doane set off with his burden.

In a few minutes they reached the bricklayer's cottage, and a clean bed
was hastily prepared for the victim of the disaster.

The young gentleman waited in the little kitchen until Margaret could
give him a report of the lady's state. In a very short space of time she
joined him.

"Lady Juliana is still insensible. I fear her injuries are dangerous,
but I can only use my best skill until some physician comes," she said,
trying to speak cheerfully.

"I will send the best one I can find from Lynthorpe, and telegraph
immediately to the Marquis of Ducie. He could reach us to-night, I
think. May I ask the name of the lady under whose kind charge I leave
Lady Julie?"

Margaret crimsoned, and drew back. Until then it had not struck her that
she would stand a better chance of getting rid of the old life by taking
an assumed name.

"Margaret Blair," she faltered, at random.

"Miss Blair?"

She bowed.

"I cannot express my admiration of Miss Blair's brave conduct," said the
young gentleman, with a return bow. "But my uncle, the Marquis of Ducie,
shall hear that it was through you that his daughter is saved, if she
should recover. Allow me to introduce myself."

He handed her a daintily embossed card, with a coat of arms upon which
was engraved,

    "_Lieutenant Harry Faulconcourt,
           H. M. S. Utopia._"

With another profound bow he left her.

It was long before Margaret could hope that her prayer was to be
answered; the beautiful face of the lady showed no ripple of
consciousness, and the heart beat with muffled and uncertain throbs.

A physician called in on his way to the scene of the accident, but his
examination was hurried, and his directions brief, for others were
waiting, with broken limbs to be splintered, and gaping wounds to be
sewed up. So Margaret and the bricklayer's wife did what they could
alone.

And the first beam of the full moon stole through the cracked window
pane, and silvered over the pale, set countenance until it gleamed with
lustrous purity, and the faint breath of returning life parted the
marble lips, and Margaret saw that Heaven had consented to her prayer.

Lady Juliana looked up fixedly, and saw a tender face bending over her,
with gray eyes glimmering in the moonlight, through their burden of glad
tears. Lady Juliana, in her pain and weakness, wondered what heavenly
countenance this was which soared above her, and smiled in answer,
thinking at first--poor little soul!--that she was with her mother in
heaven.

"How did I come to be here? Tell me about it."

"There was a railway accident, you remember? Everybody was more or less
hurt--I excepted--so I am taking care of you. Mr. Faulconcourt has gone
to the village of Lynthorpe to telegraph for your papa. He will perhaps
be here to-night."

"And who are you?" asked the innocent voice again.

"Margaret Blair," she stammered, turning away.

"Do you belong to Lynthorpe?"

"No. I was on my way to London. You remember the person who sat opposite
you in the cars?"

"Oh, yes. When I began to scream and jump up, you held me, didn't you?"

"I was afraid you would dash yourself out at the door. Are you in pain?"

My lady's pretty face was a net-work of petulant lines.

"I have such a weary, crushed feeling," she complained; "and I don't
like lying here in this odd place without my maid to take care of me. Of
course you will be going away in the morning?"

"Not unless your father arrives to-night to take charge of you."

"Don't then, there's a dear Miss Blair," murmured the lady, coaxingly.

Margaret bent over my lady with a rush of tenderness in her manner. What
would she not give to win the sweet girl's love? The innocent blue eyes
seemed to hold in their depths such guilelessness; the beauty was so
perfect which Heaven had bestowed upon her, that beauty-loving Margaret
yearned to have her cling to her thus forever.

"I will stay with you as long as you want me," she whispered, kissing
the pellucid brow of Lady Julie.




CHAPTER V.

ATTEMPT AT MURDER.


The fair dawn slid with crimson ray under the yellow mist; the breath of
morning stirred the pendant leaves, and on its wings it bore the tramp
of a host.

In a moment the loud _reveille_ was sounding, the thundering camp was
alive with voices, every man was on his feet.

"A surprise!" shouted St. Udo, marshaling his company. "Be ready to meet
them! Form, men!"

The soldiers under Colonel Brand's command had come straight from their
pleasant homes among the Green Mountains. Untried and but freshly
trained, one might have doubted their stability in a moment like this.

Not so their colonel; he had carefully studied these intelligent faces,
and he had read both sense and spirit there. His ringing voice carried
confidence and enthusiasm to its utterances, and was met by a cheer from
his men which reverberated from the distant forest like an echo of the
sea. In a few moments the tents were struck, the baggage vans were
loaded, and the small army was in rapid motion toward the point from
which the alarm had sounded.

In the midst of the plain they halted; their flashing arms were
presented to the wall of foliage behind which lurked the foe. They stood
there awaiting the onset, motionless as if they had sprung up from the
earth and been petrified in the first instant of their resurrection.

Then a roar of musketry broke from the emerald wall; a storm of lead
swept into the human ranks; a wild huzzah burst from the invisible
enemy, and the battle had begun. The fight was fierce and long--courage
and daring were exhibited on both sides--but when it was over, St. Udo
Brand and his brave band were famous forever. They were the victors.

       *       *       *       *       *

The two colonels were smoking together before St. Udo's tent, enjoying
an hour's chat, as usual, before they parted for the night, and in the
welcome absence of Thoms, were served by a fine fellow from Vermont, who
almost worshiped his colonel.

As the friends joked and laughed with all the reckless abandon of
soldiers, a pistol-shot was heard, and simultaneously a pistol ball
whistled past their ears and buried itself in the earth at a few feet's
distance.

Both sprang to their feet, and rushing round the tent, came upon two men
in deadly strife--one in gray, the other in blue. They rolled on the
ground; each held the other's throat in a deadly grasp. It seemed
impossible to decide upon which side the victory would turn, and their
continual writhings and contortions rendered interference impossible.
But at last the struggle ended in the Federal soldier succeeding in
drawing a dagger from his breast and plunging it into his opponent's
side.

The wounded man's hold relaxed from the other's throat; he fell back
heavily with a stifled groan, and the victor rose and turned round his
haggard, white face to the brother colonels.

"_Morbleu!_ it is Thoms!" cried Calembours, in accents of incredulity.

"Well fought, gray-beard," chimed in St. Udo, in equal amazement. "You
deserve promotion. What was this Confederate soldier about?"

Thoms glared at the two colonels like a tiger, then down at his
vanquished enemy, from whose side the blood poured hotly.

"He pretended that he wanted to offer himself as a guide to the grand
army," muttered Thoms, "and we passed the pickets and came straight to
your tent to speak about it. But he tried to pistol you when he came in
sight of you, and I had just time to dash his arm up."

"Brave Thoms!" applauded Calembours. "Good Thoms!"

"What is it, Reed?" demanded St. Udo of the soldier, who was kneeling by
the fallen Confederate.

"He is trying to speak," answered Reed. "He is saying, 'No, no.'"

Thoms bent eagerly over him, with murderous look in his eyes.

The man was dying; his half-closed eyes were glazing fast, but his
bloodless lips moved convulsively, and though his life-blood welled
forth at every effort, he still strove to utter some frantic word.

"No!--he--lies!" muttered he, at last.

Thoms' trembling fingers were at his throat in a moment--Thoms' tigerish
eyes flashed out their rage.

"Let him alone," expostulated Reed. "Let the poor wretch speak."

"Off, Thoms!" thundered St. Udo, with a terrible frown.

Both colonels stooped over the Confederate soldier. St. Udo put his ear
close to the twitching lips.

"He shot the pistol off himself," muttered the man. "Before Heaven, I
swear it! He stabbed me to save himself. He did--he did!"

The life-blood oozed into his lungs and choked him; he clasped his hands
and threw them up toward Heaven, as if he called on his creator to
witness his innocence, and immediately expired.

The two friends rose and looked at Thoms.

Whiter in his grave he would never be. The veins stood out on his damp
forehead like whipcord, but he returned their fierce gaze with a dogged
firmness.

"What do you say to this charge?" demanded St. Udo.

"I say nothing," mumbled Thoms, showing his long, cruel teeth. "If
you're ready to believe a rebel against your own servant, I needn't
expect much fair play. What else would he say to revenge his death, I'd
like to know? Of course, if you're a-going to shoot me, nothing that I
can say will stop you--you're master here, as well as everywhere else."

He ground the last words out through his teeth with a venom, a fury
which belonged more to a madman than to a man supposed to be in
possession of his ordinary sanity, and he addressed them to St. Udo
exclusively.

"You deserve to die," said St. Udo, "if you have attempted our lives."

"By gar! ve vill court-martial the rogue!" cried Calembours. "He shall
be shot, the traitor!"

"If you shoot me, you shoot an innocent man," protested the old man.
"Surely Colonel Brand will give me fair play? I swear I never attempted
your lives!"

St. Udo scrutinized the eager face doubtfully, and frowned.

"You say that the Confederate, not you, fired that pistol-shot?" he
demanded.

"I do say so," answered Thoms, firmly.

"Then we give you the benefit of the doubt this time," said St. Udo,
"but warn you that you shall be well watched in future. Be off now, and
beware of treachery, for you shall not escape a second time."

The haggard face lit up with evil exultation; but Thoms cringed before
the haughty colonel, and muttered his gratitude in abject terms.

"No more need be said," cried St. Udo, with a cold sneer, "except
this--if either Colonel Calembours or I meet death treacherously, you
will be a suspected man, and will not escape, I promise you. Now, go."

Away slunk Thoms, with his head down on his breast, and the friends'
eyes met significantly.

"There goes von rascal unhung," said the chevalier.

"He's mad, Calembours--mad as Malvolio," said St. Udo. "Don't annoy
yourself over his vagaries. Ugh! how I detest his presence near me."

Reed, the soldier, filled the camp with whisperings against Thoms; over
and over the black story was repeated by a thousand camp-fires, and
wherever the wretched man slunk, he was met by suspicious looks and
loathing hatred.

He saw that everybody believed in his guilt, notwithstanding Colonel
Brand's clemency, and he quailed before the terrible position, and
shrank into himself in dumb patience.

Some hours later the command was once more on the march, and at the dawn
of day it came upon a plantation with a magnificent mansion set in the
midst.

A murmur of satisfaction ran through the weary men as a halt was
ordered, and ere long the verdant plain was white with tents, and the
lambent air was rife with the rattle of the breakfast preparations, and
fragrant with the odor of coffee and frying steaks.

Colonels Brand and Calembours looked anxiously at the pretty mansion
which peeped from foliage of the jasmine, oleander, and magnolia, and in
its spacious rooms they mentally saw their brave boys properly cared for
and nursed by the negroes of the plantation.

"We can ask for room for our wounded here until we get a chance to send
them to Washington," said St. Udo, "and leave a guard with them. Come,
Calembours, let's reconnoiter."

"With all my heart," quoth the chevalier. "I like the outside of the
_maison_ better than the inside of my tent, and, by gar! comrade, what
then will the inside of the _maison_ be? Come, then."

And with this brief prologue the quaintest performance was ushered in
which Colonel Brand had yet witnessed in his acquaintance with the
sprightly Chevalier de Calembours.

The two colonels approached through beds of sweetest flowers, and
tinkling fountains, and garden houses--the loveliest residence
imaginable, swathed in roses and creamy jasmine cups, girdled with
balconies in highest tracery, embellished with a row of pillars in front
upholding a gilded piazza roof, and entered through an imposing portal
of richest design.

There was no sign of life, however, apparent, although the upper windows
were opened to their widest extent, and the snowy curtains waved out on
the wall among the climbing roses; and St. Udo's peremptory rap upon the
door only received an answer from its echo in the sounding hall.

"_Encore!_" cried the cavalier, "they sleep soundly! Again, _mon ami_,
don't despair."

A shrill cry interrupted the little man, and sent his dilated eyes up to
the window above, from which it had proceeded.

"A woman in terror!" whispered he. "_Morbleu!_ I long to greet the owner
of such a voice. So clear, so fresh. Sweet madam. I pray you shriek
again!"

St. Udo knocked louder.

"Go, go, Vinnie," uttered a frantic voice. "It is a band of Northern
soldiers. They will blow up the house if you don't let them in!"

"_Milles diables!_" muttered the chevalier, in a startled tone. "Who
speaks with these accents? _Ma foi!_ I want the eclaircissement."

The door grudgingly opened, and a pretty quadroon girl looked out.

"Bring your mistress," ordered St. Udo.

She fearfully retreated, leaving the door open, and rushed up a broad
staircase, down which was wafted the hurried tones of a terrified
consultation.

Then she reappeared and conducted the officers into a magnificent
drawing-room assuring them that her mistress would see them in a few
moments.

"_Machere_, whose house is this?" demanded the chevalier.

"Colonel Estvan's," whispered the quadroon.

"Where is he?" asked St. Udo, sharply.

She turned pale.

"_Pouf!_ do not affright this pretty one," interposed the gallant
chevalier. "Monsieur Estvan is fighting like the devil against the
Northerners, is he not, _pauvrette_?"

"Yes," faltered she; "but madam forbade me to tell it."

"_Ouais_, madam is shrewd," laughed Calembours. "Now, _mon enfant_,
where is madam?"

"She has not arisen yet," said the trembling maid, "but will come soon
to speak with you. Madam asks will you have refreshments?"

"Ten thousand thanks. Yes, yes, _machere_, and make haste," said the
hungry Hun, with alacrity.

No sooner was the girl gone when Calembours turned his attention to the
examination of the elegantly embellished apartment, and, with an
ejaculation of delight, extolled the pictures, statuettes, and
_bijouterie_ which were scattered about with such profusion; and then he
burst into a gay old French song.

St. Udo, being seated within view of the hall, which he could see
through the half-open door, was the sole witness of what followed,
however.

A woman floated down the staircase and approached the door. Her demeanor
was expressive of the wildest emotion. She clung to the door-handle,
half-fainting, and listened breathlessly to the chevalier's song. She
seemed a vision of wonderful grace, with her rich dressing-robe huddled
up in her arms, and her long, light tresses sweeping over her shoulders,
and, with her soul standing in her passion-darkened eyes, and her
scarlet lips apart, she embodied the spirit of a Sabrina listening to
the voice of the gods.

Suddenly the fire died out of her face, and a weary change came over
it--fear, anger, and doubt struggled for the mastery--and at last she
dropped her hand, wrung it in its lovely fellow, and swiftly fled up
stairs again.

"Now, who is this woman?" mused St. Udo, "and what does she know of my
friend, the chevalier? Shall I interfere? No--I think he would scarcely
brook my meddling. In his place, I should not."

He made no remark, therefore; and when the chevalier's song came to an
end, Madam Estvan entered the room.

What a transformation!

St. Udo stood in speechless surprise.

A woman with a stout figure, keen, dark face, and pale, green eyes.

Where were the graceful, lissome figure, the dainty complexion, the
passion-darkened eyes.

And madam's hair was gray as Thoms' grizzly locks--no waving tresses of
serpentine gold saw he. Madam's lips were blue with fright, no longer
thin, scarlet beauty-lines with a string of pearls between. Madam was
old, awkward, and spoke nothing but French.

Puzzled in the extreme, St. Udo was obliged to content himself by
watching the next incident of interest, Madam Estvan's behavior to
Colonel Calembours.

They met--he with round, suspicious eyes snapping with eagerness, she
with downcast lids and brassy brow, and each performed a charming
obeisance.

"Le Chevalier de Calembours," says he.

"Madam Estvan, at your service, messieurs," returns she.

They bow again, retire a pace, their eyes meet--they both smile a
little; but Calembours' color fades to a sickly yellow, and madam's face
reddens under the brown.

"We are forced to request your house for a temporary hospital," remarks
St. Udo, breaking the utter silence.

The spell dissolves--they both turn to him, and both become natural, and
that is all St. Udo can discover in the meeting.

Madam Estvan immediately set her house at their disposal. Nothing would
give her more gratification than to be of use to the Federal soldiers,
for that she was not of the South they both must see.

She led them through the whole house, assisting them with charming
graciousness to select the most suitable apartments, and bewailing the
meagerness of her domestic force which would compel the soldiers to wait
upon themselves. But do what she would, St. Udo could not divest himself
of the conviction that she and the fair Sabrina figure were identical.

At last they returned to the lower hall and essayed to depart.

Madam Estvan accompanied them to the door with bland courtesy.

St. Udo was already opening the door, when a rattle of shot against the
roof of the piazza startled him, and a cannon-ball immediately followed
and crashed in the side of the doorway.

A fearful shriek burst from Madam Estvan; she rushed forward and clung
to the little chevalier's arm.

"_Mon Dieu!_ woman, let me go!" hissed he, with an ominous scowl.

"No, no, Ladislaus, save me, your poor Alice, who ever loved you! Don't
desert me again!" wailed the woman, frantically.

Her voice rang out pure and flute-like in the English language; her
terror tore aside the cunning mask, and plainly revealed to St. Udo the
lovely vision he had seen before.

"_Sacre!_ I suspected as much!" swore the chevalier, shaking her roughly
off. "Away, traitress!"

He sprang across the piazza, followed by St. Udo, and the wretched woman
sank, a helpless heap, upon the floor.

Looking back, each from his post, at the fairy palace, the two colonels
saw a stream of fire running along the piazza roof, licking the airy
balconies up, creeping serpent-like around the pillars, and so through
smoking portico to the senseless woman lying on the hall floor where she
had fallen.




CHAPTER VI.

ST. UDO BRAND'S FIANCEE.


The last train from London brought a physician to Lynthorpe, dispatched
by the Marquis of Ducie to attend his daughter, who brought a polite
message from his lordship to Miss Blair, that an important engagement
prevented his accompanying Dr. Trewin, but that he would be at Lynthorpe
by the morning train.

The physician examined his patient and pronounced her severely but not
dangerously injured, and proceeded to make her as comfortable as
circumstances would permit, after which she ate a little, and fell into
a placid slumber--Margaret keeping faithful watch, while Dr. Trewin
dozed in his chair.

At ten o'clock next morning a carriage and four drew up before John
Doane's humble house, and two gentlemen, a man servant, a busy-eyed
young woman, a coachman and groom in magnificent liveries of gray and
bronze, appeared upon the scene. These were the Marquis of Ducie, an
extra physician in case Trewin should not understand his duty, a valet,
my lady's maid, and the servants.

His lordship asked where his daughter was stowed, and was forthwith
ushered into the bed-closet where she lay, by Margaret Walsingham.

"Haw! By Jove, this is very awkward _faux pas_! Might have been killed
by these rascally railway managers! Confoundedly awkward mistake! Howdo,
Julie?"

"Oh! bad enough, papa!" responded the patient, receiving the careless
paternal embrace as indifferently as it was given. "I might have died
ten times over before you would come. Why didn't you come to me
immediately, papa?"

"Couldn't, my dear--was at Millecolonne's to meet Prince Protocoli--a
political dinner which could not be avoided--sent Trewin in my place,
and brought Sir Maurice Abercroft with me, so you can't complain for
want of medical or paternal attention either."

His lordship, after patting her cheek, went out, saying with comfortable
imperiousness that she must be ready to start in two hours--Abercroft
would set her up for the drive.

Forthwith Sir Maurice Abercroft came in and minutely examined Lady
Juliana on her injuries. The result was as might have been expected,
considering his lordship's wishes, a decision in favor of the proposed
removal; and the lady's maid was sent in to do her mistress' toilet.

Apparently my lady stood in some little awe of her father, for she
submitted without further question, though a petulant cloud was on her
beautiful face, as she said,

"I would rather stay in this quiet little room, with that solemn Miss
Blair, if she would stay, than go home to the Park. This is a new
sensation, at the least."

Margaret drew nearer and tenderly smoothed the hair back from my lady's
brow.

"Dear me!" cried Lady Juliana, looking at her, "how pale and exhausted
you look, Miss Blair. Why, of course you must feel so--you have been up
with me all night, and--good gracious!" becoming suddenly filled with
compunction, "how coolly I have taken your great service!"

Her ladyship sat upright, flushed by a sudden impulse of gratitude.

"Who are your friends?" she asked, with a bright look.

"I have none, Lady Juliana. I am looking for some situation by which to
be independent of friends."

"Oh, how fortunate for me! Would you like--but perhaps you are not
qualified. Are you well educated? I think you are."

"I have been eight years at a boarding-school, my lady."

"Good gracious! I suppose you are as learned as Socrates. I never was at
school in all my life! I was kept with Aunt Faulconcourt and beasts of
governesses. But here comes papa."

The marquis re-entered with a bow, the consolidation of courtly
etiquette.

"Papa. I was too stupid before to introduce you to Miss Blair. She is
the young lady who saved my life. I wish to do something for her."

His lordship advanced and held out two fingers.

"How can I most suitably thank Miss Blair for her services to my
daughter?"

"Papa," interposed Lady Juliana, seeing Margaret stand pale and
embarrassed before her pseudo-patron, "may she come to Hautville Park
instead of Madam Beneant, whom I am so tired of? She would be a more
suitable companion than that chattering widow--I am so sick of her
flirtations! And I am sure I should be perfectly happy with the generous
creature who saved my life."

"Shall you consider her ladyship's proposal?" asked the marquis, turning
again to Margaret. "Madam Beneant has been my daughter's companion for a
year and a half, but she is too old. Her salary was two hundred a year.
Yon shall have two hundred and fifty if you decide to come. What do you
say?"

She stood wavering between conflicting impulses. She longed to go with
this dove-like creature whom she had saved from death; her heart clung
to her--how could she leave her? But again, would she be concealed from
the terrible St. Udo Brand's possible persecutions at the Marquis of
Ducie's residence?

Who would think to look for her in Lady Juliana's companion? Her heart
pleaded.

"Stay--oh, stay!"

So, all blinded to the future stealing surely on, Margaret flung herself
back into the whirlpool which, gradually circling inward, would
inevitably bring her face to face with that which she most dreaded.

"I will go with you, Lady Juliana," she said.

When the bricklayer came home to dinner he found the grand people all
gone, after showing but meager gratitude for his kindness.

Hautville Park was near Lambeth, within pleasant distance of London; and
in due time, in the dying crimson of departed sunlight, the carriage
arrived at its stately gates, and Margaret found herself introduced as
companion to its spotless mistress, Lady Juliana Ducie.

She had not been there more than three weeks, when one day the maid
brought in a letter to my lady's boudoir. My lady was lying _a la_
convalescent on her sofa, and Margaret was reading to her. My lady had
taken her time to get over her railway fright, and had taxed her
companion's strength considerably, by her exactions, but she professed
herself very fond of Miss Blair for all her trouble, and they agreed
excellently together thus far.

"Hand me that letter, Bignetta. No, give it to Miss Blair and go away,
she can read it to me."

Margaret took the letter, inserted her finger to break the seal; glanced
at the seal, and withdrew her finger as if it had been stung, glanced at
the writing, and slowly became stern and pale.

"Why don't you open it and read its contents?" cried my lady. "Are you
tired of reading all the condolence that comes to me, or do you think it
is some insolent bill?"

"Lady Juliana," said Margaret, "I cannot read this letter. I--I know the
writer."

She covered her face with her hands.

"Why, what can you mean?" exclaimed my lady, getting upon her elbows to
possess herself of the letter, and to look curiously at her companion.
"Who is it?"

She looked at her own name on the back, and gave a delighted cry.

"Captain Brand! So he deigns to remember me at last! Ah, won't I make
him suffer, for being so derelict in his duty these last three weeks!
Careless creature! he never thinks of me, except when he sees me."

She laid down the letter and returned to the charge.

"How came you, Miss Blair, to be so well informed about Captain Brand's
writing?" she demanded.

Margaret was eyeing her in speechless consternation.

She had thought at first that this missive was an inquiry from the
writer concerning herself; she had feared she was found out. But what
darker suspicion was this which was entering her mind.

"Tell me first, dear lady Julie," she exclaimed, "if Captain Brand is a
friend of yours?"

"Bring me that casket, if you please."

Margaret brought the casket and placed it before her.

"Do you see this ring," rapidly tossing rare chains, jewel cases and
bracelets. "Yes, here it is. I am not superstitious about such things,
but I don't like to be labelled 'out of the market,' so I do not wear it
often; but it is my engagement ring--is it not magnificent? This ring
was given to me by Captain St. Udo Brand six months ago, and some day I
shall be mistress of Seven Oak Waaste."

Margaret clasped her hands and gasped.

To think of the hungry kestrel pouncing upon this innocent bird! To
fancy the terrible Captain Brand wooing the affections of her Lady
Julie!

"I did not know it," was all she could articulate.

"Of course you did not; how should you? But you have not told me how you
came to know Captain Brand's writing?" insisted her ladyship.

Margaret saw that exposure was coming; she expected it to be in that
letter.

"Read what your fiance says, and then listen to my explanation," she
murmured, turning away.

My lady, slightly irritated, tore off the seal and began to skim over
the contents.

"Heavens!" she ejaculated, "what is this? He writes from New York,
saying that he has left England, he hopes, forever; that he is going to
get a commission in the Federal army, and win his spurs, and he gives
his reasons: 'At present, my Julie, your fiance is a penniless man, with
only a pedigree, and it is to win something more substantial that I have
left England. My grandmother has died, and contrary to all expectations,
the estate of Seven Oak Waaste has departed out of the family and gone
to my grandmother's companion. If I had been obedient to the injunctions
of my hood-winked relative, Mrs. Brand, I would have married the clever
adventuress, Miss Margaret Walsingham, who I firmly believe plotted to
supplant me as she has done, and I would have thus shared the estate.
But love, one thing held me back. I have pinned my faith in woman's
purity to Juliana Ducie's sleeve, for I think, my child, you are about
the best of your sex; and honor forbade me to retract my faith to you.
So the future I offer you is this: Will you wait patiently and
constantly for the man you swore to be true to forever? Don't say yes,
without knowing your own strength. If you can be brave, patient, wise,
unselfish, you will be the first woman I ever met who deserves the much
travestied title of "woman." My little darling, you know that I love
you, and that I would become a good man if your hands cared to beckon
me, and I place my future life at your feet. Make it bright and pure by
your constancy, or make it black and sullied by the universal
peculiarity of your sex--treachery!'"

"What can he be thinking of?" cried the reader, with a burst of angry
tears. "Why should he expect such an unheard of thing from me, if he has
lost Castle Brand and Seven Oak Waaste?"

Margaret listened as in a dream.

This was a new light upon St. Udo Brand's movements. Did his character
suffer by it? He had gone away and given up his lands to one whom he
considered a greedy schemer; and he had flung himself into another life,
for the sake of her whom he loved. How had she wronged him by her terror
of him?

Quick as light her feelings underwent a change, and my lady gazed in
astonishment as her quiet companion threw off the guise which she had
worn for security.

"Dear Lady Juliana," panted Margaret, "do not blame Captain Brand, who
has been honorable to his engagement with you where meaner men have
failed. Perhaps--who knows? yours may be the hand which will lead him
into a higher way. Oh, my darling, do not hold lightly your power."

"Why should you espouse Captain Brand's cause?" demanded my lady. "What
can Miss Blair have to do with Captain Brand?"

Tears burst from the eyes of the quiet companion, and rushed in a
volcanic shower down her cheeks, as she answered,

"I am Margaret Walsingham."

"_You!_" exclaimed my lady, after a stare of unutterable astonishment.

"My darling Lady Julie!" cried Margaret, catching my lady's hands and
holding them in her own. "I am that unfortunate, that wretched
_protegee_ of Mrs. Brand's unwise affection; but never think that I
would accept the Brand estates when obtained in such a way, or that I
would willingly defraud St. Udo Brand. I thank Heaven that these hands,"
proudly holding them out, "are yet unsullied by such sin."

"How is it that you are here under the name of Blair."

"I left Castle Brand to win my bread, and did not wish to be traced."

"How strange! Then the fortune will doubtless revert to the rightful
heir if you are sincere in refusing it?"

"I fear not. The executors will hold it for one year: and if by that
time Captain Brand and I," with a bitter tide of crimson in her face,
"have failed to fulfil the conditions of the will--that is, to get
married--and I still refuse the property, Seven Oak Waaste will probably
go into chancery."

Lady Julie gave a cry as if after the vanishing estates, and covered her
face with her hands, petulantly weeping.

"Then I am done with St. Udo," she cried. "What do I want of a man who
is stripped of his position?"

"He has made a great sacrifice of wealth, and that letter says it is for
love of you," said Margaret, coming and taking her lady-love in her
arms; "and he is a nobler man than I thought. Surely you will be true to
him. Will you not, Lady Julie?"

"You are the essence of simplicity, Miss Walsingham. You will laugh at
your own folly, when I communicate all this to my father, and when you
hear his verdict. Please leave me now, like a dear girl; I am overcome
by this sudden change in my prospects, and must give way to my natural
feelings for a while."

Margaret left her, as she sorrowfully believed, to the pangs of untoward
love, and walked about the gay grounds of Hautville Park, weeping and
praying for her sweet Lady Juliana.

Some hours later she returned, to find quite a metamorphosis in my
lady's invalid room. My lady, in high spirits, was superintending, with
gusto, her own toilet, as it progressed under the skillful hand of her
_femme de chambre_.

"An arrival at Hautville," she cried, turning to Margaret, "and at such
an opportune time, when I am so bored. The young duke of Piermont has
come from his Irish estates to see papa, and I am going to be
introduced. I have heard that his wealth is enormous. His estates in the
north of Ireland and west of Scotland are as rich as any in the three
kingdoms. He has a rent roll of seventy thousand pounds, independent of
a complete square of brick mansions in Cork. How would you like to
receive letters from your Julie, sealed with a ducal coronet?"

"I don't expect to see that day," said Margaret, tenderly.

"Heigh ho! I am an unfortunate creature," sighed my lady, plaintively.
"But, as I told you, my papa laughed at the idea of a further
continuance of that arrangement, and he has written, and so have I, and
the letter is sent. I never mentioned you in my note of dismissal."

"Dear Lady Julie, you are deceiving yourself. You think your pride will
carry you through this thing, but your heart will break in the attempt."

"I suppose so. Well, it shall never be said that Ducie disobeyed her
father. We are a gorgeous race, as you may have observed by the
magnificence of this summer residence, so I will bury my pain and cheat
my dear papa into believing I am resigned!"




CHAPTER VII.

A DUEL WITH A TRAITOR.


The foe had stolen a march upon the weary encampment in the plantation.
Calmly St. Udo Brand faced the coming legions, and bravely retreated in
good order upon the main army, which was soon engaged in deadly conflict
with Gen. Lee's forces. It is not our intention to dwell on the battles
which ensued. They are a part of history now. We have to do with but a
few more incidents in St. Udo Brand's career as a soldier.

One night Colonels Brand and Calembours were shivering over their smoky
fire; it rained incessantly, the tent was soaked through, their clothing
was soaked through, and their wretched provisions were, besides being
scanty, almost uneatable with dust and rain.

"_Sacre!_" swore the chevalier, wiping his moist mustache with a brown,
bony hand, whose only remnant of aristocracy was the magnificent
solitaire which still glittered upon the little finger. "_Sacre! mon
comerade_, this must end. What for we remain under fortune's ban? Jade!
she laughs under the hood at our credulity in hoping for golden favors.
I will snap the fingers in the tyrant's face and elope with chance, by
gar! I will open the eyes and seek some better position where dollars
are more plentiful and blows less!"

"Silence, you rascal! What better life does a brave soldier expect? Do
your duty in the field and don't growl in the camp, and when good luck
comes you will deserve it," replied St. Udo, laughing.

"_Pardieu!_ I shall be too old to see him when he comes!" grumbled the
chevalier. "Three months of glory without gold is enough for me."

"You are a mercenary dog," cried St. Udo; "and I know you are an
implacable devil. I have not forgotten Madam Estvan."

"_Diable!_ nor I," hissed Calembours. "_Mon ami_, let us forget her. La!
there she has vanished forever. But, Monsieur St. Udo, I have not been
mercenary with you, have I?"

"Never, chevalier."

"Know you why?"

"Not I, indeed."

"I love you, _mon ami_, by gar! I could not betray you for any sum."

"Generous man. But don't ruin your prospects for the sake of honesty,
who is such a lax companion of yours that he is scarce worth such a
sacrifice."

"_Mon ami_, my honor is unimpeachable."

"Doubtless, such as it is. By Jove! here come letters from home. One for
you, Calembours, a budget for me. Huzzah!"

Yes, letters had reached the army, and many a poor fellow that night
forgot the anguish of his wounds and the gloom of his prospects in glad
perusal of his loved one's words of affection.

St. Udo, too, held an envelope in a tight hand, while he hastily scanned
the other missives, eager to fling them aside and to devote himself
without restraint to it.

He laughed with a kind of uncaring scorn at Mr. Davenport's stiff
business letter, and he frowned at good little Gay's warm-hearted
persuasions to hasten back to England and settle down in Castle Brand
before the year was out. He glanced with abstracted eye over the notes
of astonishment, reproach, and regrets which his movements had elicited
from his brother officers in the Guards, and then he put them all away,
and tenderly broke the seal of the hoarded envelope.

And as his darkening eye took in the meaning of its heartless words, and
his heart realized the hollowness, the vanity, the treachery of the
woman who had penned them, an awful scowl settled upon his brow, a
demoniac sneer curled his fierce lip, and for a moment he lifted his
blazing eyes to heaven, as if in derisive question of its existence when
such an earth lay below.

"Farewell, doting fantasy!" muttered St. Udo, tearing Lady Juliana's
letter in two, and casting the fragments into the flames. "So ends my
faith in goodness, truth, purity, as held by women. Once, twice, have I
madly laid my life under woman's heel, to be betrayed, my foolish
yearning after a better belief to be laughed at, flouted at, scorned. I
might have stuck to my only deity, Fate, and let these idle dreams go. I
would not then have received this last sting. I was right at
first--there is no created being so traitorous, so cold, so cruel and
Judas-like as a woman, except the devil who fashioned her."

He scanned the polite dismissal of the Marquis of Ducie and smiled with
scoffing indifference, and folding his arms, stared into the hissing
embers for a long time.

At sunrise six or seven detachments, among which were those of Colonels
Brand and Calembours, received orders to march to the relief of an
advanced post, and on their arrival, they were at once hurried into
action.

St. Udo, on his maddened horse, was coursing before the serried ranks of
his detachment, shouting his commands and cheering on his men to the
attack, when a blaze of battery guns opened fire upon the rushing
Federals, and, sweeping their lines obliquely, turned the sally into
wild confusion.

Colonel Brand galloped along the broken line, calling them on, and
waving his sword to the object of attack, the horse and his rider
looming like spirits through the murk, and inviting the savage aim of a
score of riflemen.

Heedless of the storm of red-hot hail, he pranced onward, inspiriting
the quailing men by his fearless example, till his horse staggered under
him, sprang wildly upward, then fell, with a crash, upon his side.

The colonel lay face up, stunned by the fall, and pinned to the ground
by the limbs under his horse, and a host of the foe rushed down the
slope and charged the wavering Vermont boys.

When St. Udo was able to look up, he saw a giant Southerner making
toward him with clubbed musket. He was helpless, his men were everywhere
grappling with their adversaries, and the colonel gave himself up for
lost, when, lo! a tall figure darted from a neighboring thicket, the
blue uniform of the Federal crossed the path of the Confederate giant,
and with a furious lunge of the bayonet, he attempted to beat him back
from his charge upon St. Udo.

The foe met him at first with a scornful cry, but, finding it impossible
to escape him, turned and closed in desperate encounter. Hand to hand
they struggled, now grappling with the fury of gladiators, now retiring
and gazing in each other's faces with determination.

So well matched were they, that this terrible conflict lasted for full
three minutes, and many stopped to gaze in wonder upon the desperate
encounter; and St. Udo, dragged from under his dead horse and mounted
upon another, paused to see the end.

The Federal soldier waited until the rush of a passing sally hampered
his adversary's arm, and then, raising his clubbed gun on high, he
brought it down with a crashing blow upon his head.

The giant threw up his arms, with a fearful cry, quivered from head to
foot for a moment, and then fell backward, like a clod, dead.

The Federal hero turned to St. Udo with a grim smile.

Heavens! it was Thoms.

The next moment he had vanished in the whirl of battle, and was no more
to be seen.

"Ye gods! he has saved my life!" cried St. Udo Brand. "Thoms, the
despised--Thoms, the sleuth-hound--the old maniac! What can this mean?
Have we used him badly?"

St. Udo, lying in his tent, mused deeply on the strange kindness which
the man whom he had spurned had done him, when a shadow flitted
near--Thoms, with his intent face and wary eye.

"Gad! I was looking for you to come, Thoms," cried St. Udo, getting up
and extending his hand frankly. "I cannot express my thanks to you for
your gallantry on my behalf to-day, but I am grateful for it, and
there's my hand on that."

The long, brown fingers clutched his as if in a vise, and wrung them
hard.

"Don't mention it, colonel. You was in danger, and I couldn't abear to
have you killed yet," smiled the old man, grimly.

"By Jove! you make me ashamed of my suspicions of you," cried St. Udo,
with ingenuous candor. "Let me say now that I am sorry for them."

"I knowed you would change your mind about me some day," muttered Thoms;
"so I were contented to wait for the time, colonel."

"I was so sure you owed me some grudge, my good fellow," said St. Udo.

"No, Colonel Brand, I owe you no grudge as long as you trust me and
don't treat me like a secret felon," exclaimed Thoms, in a hoarse voice.
"And now that you treat me better, I'll never leave you as long as you
live--I won't by Heaven!"

His sallow face, more ghastly than ever after the day's bloody toil,
whitened in the lurid gloom of twilight, and a terrible smile played
about the twitching corners of his mouth.

St. Udo placed a heavy hand upon his shoulder.

"Forgive me, my friend, for all my harshness to you," said he,
earnestly. "I will not doubt your good faith again. Faith, man, you
almost make me believe in disinterested goodness."

He turned away in deep emotion; he could say no more.

Was it an answering thrill which, stirring the secret heart of the
strange old servant, sent his eyes, filled with such an unearthly glare,
over the gallant colonel? He had saved him from a certain death, with
mad bravery, that day; he had come to listen to his grateful thanks;
yet, if ever the fires of Pandemonium blazed in human eyes, they blazed
in his in that quiet, murderous look.

Steadily, surely, the man was creeping toward his secret purpose, and if
St. Udo's entire trust removed another obstacle from his path, that
obstacle was removed to-night, and nothing stood between him and the
end.

"_Eh bien!_" chirped the chevalier, who had been an edified spectator of
this scene. "Since we are all once more the happy family, let us be
merry, let us sing, talk, and scare the blue devils away. Tell me the
little history of your life in England, _mon ami_."

"England be hanged," returned St. Udo, returning to his gloom. "She gave
me no history but the black records of vice, treachery, and
disappointment. What do you want with such a history?"

"Amusement, instruction," yawned Calembours. "Something to make
gray-bearded time fly quick."

"Very well, I accede for want of other employment. What shall I tell you
of? My hours devoted to finding out the world, and presided over by
idiot Credulity? Or my hours devoted to revenging my injuries upon the
world, and presided over by the great Father of lies? What will you
have?"

"Your life," breathed the chevalier, impressively.

St. Udo placed himself in a comfortable position and began with a smile
of mockery. Calembours fixed his eager eyes upon him and listened
intently; and Thoms crept into the shadow behind the tent, crouched
there on his knees, and held his breath patiently.

So the story was told.

Every incident worthy of note in St. Udo's life was correctly narrated,
every name connected with the characters involved stated, their
portraits distinctly painted, their characteristics faithfully recalled,
with many a reference to the pocket-album, between; clear as if he lived
it all over again, St. Udo placed his past before the eyes of the
Chevalier de Calembours.

And neither the chevalier nor St. Udo Brand saw the slow-match
flickering over a tiny note-book behind the tent, or heard the stealthy
scrape of a pencil as long, brown fingers took down, in phonetic
characters, the words dropping lazily from the unconscious man's lips.

When St. Udo had finished, the chevalier rose and stretched his cramped
limbs.

"_Morbleu!_ Time has fled nimbly this night. I forgot everything in your
recital, _mon ami_. Thanks for your amiable complaisance; and now I
retire to follow you in dreams. _Bon soir._"

With a silent chuckle, he stepped from St. Udo's tent and disappeared to
seek his own quarters.

Thoms, too, clasped up his tiny note-book, and creeping round the side
of the tent, and observing that St. Udo sat absorbed in dark reverie, he
wrapped himself in his blanket, and threw himself at St. Udo's feet, and
soon fell asleep.

Then the night grew black and late, and silence brooded solemnly above
the camp, broken only by the faint moan of the sleepless wanderer, or
the picket's hollow tramp.

Twice the devoted preserver of St. Udo's life softly raised his head to
look at Colonel Brand, and sank down again, and still the lonely man sat
gazing into the lurid embers of the waning watch-fire, thinking his
thoughts of gall.

Just before dawn he thought he heard a movement in the camp, a faint,
uncertain tripping of a wary foot, a sly whistle, twice repeated.

Through the murky gloom St. Udo peered with languid interest at a spot
of fire gently undulating toward his tent.

What could it be? A cannoneer's slow match! But what could bring a
battery there--and at that hour?

Unwilling to alarm needlessly his slumbering command, he slid back from
the glare of the camp-fire into the shadow of his tent, and rising, bent
his steps to the neighborhood of the suspicious object.

A passing breeze, laden with the perfume of the familiar cigar, a
brighter glow, revealing the drooping nose and pursed-up lips, declared
the identity of the prowler.

"Pshaw, you Calembours again--what sets you prowling about again like a
cat on the leads, or, rather a hungry jackal in a graveyard?"

"_Mai foi!_ you wear your tongue passably loose, _mon ami_. A night cat?
No, worse luck. No pretty little kittens to chase round here. A jackal
among _les cadores_? You have too many of that sort down there already,
stripping the dead and the living, too. Still, let us not scandalize the
profession, the calling of the jackal is a noble one when there is
genius and _finesse_ to raise it from the _metier_ to the art. But where
the jackal points the lion pounces. You call me the jackal. _Eh, bien
j'accepte_--it is mine to point, but it is for you, Monsieur le Lion, to
take the leap."

"A truce to your riddles, and say what you've got to say--though why you
can't come out with it openly, I can't conceive."

"Find, then, my little meaning," whispered the chevalier, impressively.
"In two words, you shall be _au courant_ with the affair. We have come
here to push our fortune, but the jade flouts us, and ranks herself
under the standard of the foe. Let us follow her thither. For you and
for me there is neither North nor South, Federal nor Confederate.
Soldiers of Fortune, we follow wherever glory leads the way, and victory
fills the pocket. What of this last bagatelle of a victory to-day? We
have escaped with our skins to-day; to-morrow we will loose them. No,
_mon ami_, the South will win the day; so join we the Southern chivalry
as becomes _chevaliers d'honneur_."

"Why, you precious scoundrel! I always thought you somewhat of a puppy,
but to propose this to me, an Englishman and a gentleman! Draw, you
treacherous hound--draw, and defend yourself!"

And the steel blade glistened like the sword of the avenging angel
before the eyes of the astonished Hun.

"_Sacre, mon Dieu!_ Has he gone mad?" was his sole reply, as with the
practical skill of an accomplished _maitre d'armes_ his ready rapier was
set, and parrying the lunges of his vexed opponent.

Still, with muttered explanations, blaspheming ejaculations and
apologies, intermingled with furious rallies, he sought to moderate the
just wrath of St. Udo, till at last, hearing loud shouts and footsteps
approaching, by a quick turn he evaded St. Udo's pass, and dashed his
sword out of his hand high in the air. Ere St. Udo could stoop to
recover it, the traitor dealt him a mighty blow over the head, which
felled him to the ground, and the last remembrance he had was the
taunting "_au revoir_" of the renegade as he plunged into the thicket
and vanished from pursuit.

When St. Udo recovered, he found himself surrounded by eager faces, and
Thoms kneeling in the attitude of anxiety beside him, staring at him
with intentness.

"What's all this, colonel?" demanded an old officer.

"Ha, by Jove! the rascal has escaped, has he?" cried St. Udo, getting up
stiffly by the help of Thoms' shoulder.

"Who--who? A Confederate?" was cried on all sides.

"No, indeed, not a brave foe, but our precious Colonel Calembours
himself. He has deserted to Lee's army, and had the audacity to tell his
scheme to me. Quick, Thoms, your arm, man! I must communicate with the
general and set scouts on his track."

St. Udo hastened to the general's tent as speedily as his reeling head
would permit him.

A pursuit was immediately made of the fugitive, and precautions taken to
foil his intended treachery; but the pursuit was fruitless--Calembours
had dodged misfortune successfully this time.

Lying face down in his tent, St. Udo Brand mused over the fleeting
incidents of his late existence, and owned himself at fault.

He looked back upon the friends he had expected fidelity from--which of
them had not betrayed his trust? Upon the humble worm he had crushed
with scorning heel--his life-preserver--his only friend now.

The deserted man scanned his reckless life, and in its shapeless
fragments began to find a plan, and wonderingly, as a child fits
together the scattered sections of his little puzzle, St. Udo linked the
parted sections of his existence into their possible plan--and lo! he
discovered that Providence held the key!

The remorseful man rose, and found Thoms studying him with his uncanny
stare.

"My kind fellow," said St. Udo, gently, "Since your master has left you
on my hands, and since I can't forget the noble service you have done
me, perhaps you had better enter my service and see me through the war?"

"That will I, colonel," answered Thoms, with a keen smile.

"You have been a good friend to me, and Heaven knows I have need of
friends," said St. Udo, gratefully.

The glittering eyes watched him as intently as if the old man were
learning a lesson.

"If there's anything I could do for you, Thoms, to mark my gratitude, I
would like to hear of it," said St. Udo.

"Nothing, colonel, except to let me stay by you."

"You may get shot in battle, my man."

"So may you, colonel, and more likely."

"Well, we won't dispute about that," said St. Udo, sunnily. "But
wouldn't you rather go North, out of the scrape?"

"I'll never leave you!"

St. Udo, glancing up gratefully, saw that in his eye, which chilled as
with the finger of death, the warm words crowding to his lips; a thrill
of mortal dread, a sure premonition of evil seized his soul, and he
waited, with the words frozen, regarding the man with stony stare until
he turned on his heel and shuffled out of sight.

That night, when Thoms ventured back to sate his gloating eyes again
upon St. Udo Brand, he sought for him in vain--his sub-officer occupied
his tent.

"Where is the colonel?" asked Thoms, turning sharply on the nearest
soldier.

"Gone, two hours ago."

"Gone!"

How white the sallow face blanched. How the tones quavered.

"By Heaven, I have lost him," cried Thoms, vehemently. "Where did he
go?"

"On a secret embassy somewhere."

"Without me!" groaned Thoms, with a wild flash of the wolfish eyes. "He
has stolen away from me--_he has found me out_!"




CHAPTER VIII.

MARGARET'S VISION.


Lady Juliana Ducie concealed her disappointed love so well that no one
would have suspected, not even simple Margaret Walsingham, that she
suffered from its pangs.

As the summer season wore on and she began to get over her "awkward
affair" with the rail-cars, she plunged into gayety, and a violent
flirtation with the Irish duke, which threatened quite to banish any
lingering memories of the soldier who was fighting in other scenes, and
Hautville Park became thronged with illustrious visitors.

Margaret Walsingham, in her somber black dress, mingled as rarely as
possible with the flippant cavaliers who were forever hanging about my
lady's drawing-rooms, or dangling after her in her saunters with her
companion. She rarely lifted her eyes when they bowed to the carelessly
introduced Miss Walsingham; and never by any chance engaged in
conversation with them.

Yet a new world of knowledge was opening to her daily, and filling her
mind with absorbing speculations.

How often she heard St. Udo Brand, the young guardsman, discussed by
these London fashionables, with appropriate jest or story, they laughed
at his withering flashes of wit, admired his brilliant follies, and
narrated his erratic generosities, with never a sigh for the heart
which, to be so reckless now, must once have been so warm and true.

Day by day, the broken image of a primal god was built up in her heart
with here and there a flashing glimpse of virtue, or a suggestion of
innate chivalry of soul, or high-minded honor which contrasted sadly
with the wild deviltry of a rampant friend.

And each day this simple woman carried some bright gem of goodness with
which to deck her demi-god, until the vision seemed so kingly, that she
took to defending his defects to herself, and covering them from her own
eyes.

Morning and noon, and in the midnight hours, when strains of music and
the din of revelry stole dimly up to the companion's remote chamber, she
dreamed of the possible angel in this man, and her soul yearned for his
welfare, and mourned over the frailty of the moth which he had burdened
with his trust.

"A true brave woman might reclaim him yet," she sometimes sighed; "but
the last chance most probably is past with Lady Juliana."

"You are to dine with us to-day," said my lady, one morning, turning
suddenly to Margaret from under the hands of her maid. "My cousin, Harry
Falconcourt, has arrived, and insists on being introduced formally to
the heroine who saved me; and as I am bored to death with always saying
'she does not go into society,' I have promised him."

"Dear Lady Julie, I hope you will not insist upon this!" exclaimed
Margaret, much startled. "I really have nothing to do with society."

"Well, for all that, I am not going to allow you your privilege of
seclusion on this occasion. I don't like leaving you alone so much."

So my lady made her way, though this time it was rather roughly carried
through the heart of her companion.

The guests of his lordship's dinner party were the resident gentry, with
their portly wives and blooming daughters, come to meet the London
visitors of Hautville Park; and a great many bright uniforms mingled
among the masses of silken drapery, feathers, jewels, black broadcloth,
and tulle.

Lady Juliana kept her small territory at her end of the table in a
continual ripple of delight by her quips and coquetries. She was in
surprising spirits, for was not his Grace the Duke of Piermont on her
right hand, and Sir Akerat Breckinridge, who was a slain subject, on her
left?

His Grace, who was an ordinary-looking young man, with a bright,
wholesome complexion, and pleasantly sparkling eyes, seemed almost
bewitched by my lady's rapid flippancies; and watched her face as one
might watch the play of the aurora borealis, shooting and dancing in the
midnight sky.

"Who is that lady in the black velvet?" asked the duke. "Strange face!
Most unlike any I have ever seen before."

"Where? Oh, with Harry Falconcourt? That is Miss Walsingham, my
companion, adviser, censurer, and sheep-dog in general."

"I haven't seen such a face in my life before," continued the young
duke, with deepening earnestness; "and it is so wholly stripped of
animal beauty that the beauty that bursts from every look and tone is so
mysterious. That is a countenance graced by goodness, bravery, candor,
devotion. There are faces graced by bright eyes, an arched nostril, a
small mouth; a row of white teeth, or a waxen complexion. Which is the
greater charm, do you think?"

"I did not know you were such a physiognomist," said Lady Juliana. "Pray
read _me_, my lord."

He looked over the arch face with the plausible smile, the graceful
features, the peach-like bloom, and a faint shadow crossed his brow.

"You would be sinking in the first storm, Lady Juliana."

"Cousin Julie has suddenly subsided," said Harry Falconcourt, looking up
to the head of the table. "A minute since she was sparkling as
champagne, now she is tame as lemonade. What do you suppose has
occurred, Miss Walsingham? A mutiny between her subjects?"

"Extraordinary disposition of the Brand estates down in Surrey," said a
voice opposite. "They all go to a woman as hideous as one of Macbeth's
witches, and the only scion of the race must either marry her or lose
them."

"Is not that captain St. Udo Brand, of the Guards?" asked a gentleman in
uniform.

"The same, major."

"Fine soldier, brave man. Did you see the gallant mention of him in the
latest _American War Gazette_? Cut his way through three thousand of the
enemy with his handful of Vermonters."

"A daring deed, major."

"Nothing when you know the vast nature of the man. He needed such scenes
as are described in the sickening records of war to stir up the lion in
him, and to bring out the gentleness too. He is the darling of his
company--many a cheer, and I'll not be afraid to say a blessing also has
greeted him in his tender visits to his suffering boys."

"You knew him at home here?"

"Knew Captain Brand? Like a brother, sir. Sad dog, but a noble man--a
noble man."

What bright intelligence was in the deep gray eyes which watched the
officer's face. But he did not see them, he was so absorbed by his
subject.

A pause occurred in the gossip, for the band was having a rest of forty
bars, and the flageolet was weak.

At the request of Lady Juliana, Margaret carried her careladen face to
the piano and played a long time, what--she knew not, but gradually,
from mechanical measure, the chords grew into solemn pulsations, and a
vision rose up before her introverted eyes of a darkened battle-field,
where the cannon belched forth its fiery death, the bugle sounded the
retreat, the soldiers shouted, and cheered, and fell.

She saw the smoke and dust, the red blood pouring, the brave falling
fast; and a shrouded moon, with three black stripes across its disk, was
shining weirdly over a man lying on his broken sword, his head upon the
mane of his pulseless horse, his dark, dim eyes raised supplicatingly.

And a skulker among the dead was bending over him with demoniac
eagerness, and the dastardly dagger was plunged hilt-deep, and the man
who had been called a "hero" sank beneath the feet of the dead--and the
vision passed away.

"Miss Walsingham." She turned her electric face--her hands fell from the
ivory keys.

The gentlemen had entered the drawing-room, and the Duke of Piermont
stood beside Lieutenant Falconcourt, waiting to be introduced.

"I have much pleasure in this introduction," said his grace, offering
her an arm the instant that their hands met. "I would like much to talk
with you, so honor me by promenading with me in the conservatory. In the
first place, what was that extraordinary piece which you played?"

"I do not know--was I playing?"

His grace gazed at his companion in amazement. Doubt and terror still
struggled for the mastery on her pallid features; the large, mystic eyes
were fixed sadly upon vacancy. Miss Walsingham was quite unconscious
that she was walking through the centre of the long suite with a man who
was coveted from her by half the ladies there. "Is it possible that it
was an impromptu?"

"I--pardon me, your grace--I was playing without thinking."

"Do you know what it suggested to me? A battle-field--the retreat of the
conquered--darkness--treachery, and _murder_."

"My lord duke, what day of the month is this?"

She stopped in her sudden waking up to horror, and in her sudden
eagerness she trembled as she stood.

"The first of September."

"_The first of September._ I shall not forget."

"You are certainly distressed by something, Miss Walsingham. Let me be
of service to you?"

"You can be of service to me, your grace. You can allow me to retire,
and make some apology for me to Lady Julie which will not alarm her."

The young duke bit his lip.

"You will return to me?" he asked.

"Not to-night."

She vanished through a dimly-lighted rotunda, leaving his grace gazing
eagerly after her.

Crouching upon her knees by her chamber window, in the cold stream of
moonlight, with clasping hands and yearning eyes, Margaret Walsingham
questioned the silent heavens through the long hours for the meaning of
the vision.

And yet the man had been her enemy!




CHAPTER IX.

A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE.


Through the dark fens, and the yielding morass, and the spicy sycamore
grove, and the mossy walnut woods of Virginia, stole a gray-faced man;
panting, hunger-smitten, weary; starting at every crash of the rotten
underbrush, stopping ever with dilating eye to peer from the top of
every hill into the valley beneath.

And a thin, tawny shadow glided before him with his nose upon the
ground, and his eyes flaming ferociously--a blood-hound upon the trail.

Thoms had deserted from the army, and was out in search of Colonel
Brand, and this dog which he held in chains was guiding him foot by foot
along the secret path which St. Udo had traversed to perform his
embassy.

How the old man brightened when a blue curl of distant smoke promised
him a speedy sight of St. Udo's watch-fire! How his limbs trembled and
his haggard face blackened when the blood-hound wavered in his steady
run, and sniffed about uneasily for a lost scent! How the wicked,
tigerish eyes gleamed when the creature ran on again with eager haste
and dripping fangs!

And the long brown fingers were ever straying toward the dagger in the
bosom; and the cruel lips ever were sneering out their fell design; and
the march seemed only a summer holiday to Thoms hastening to his
colonel.

St. Udo Brand had been sent to Washington with dispatches, and was on
his way South again to join his command.

Thus much had Thoms discovered, and he was sure of coming up with him in
these pathless forests, if he trusted to the unerring instinct of his
hideous guide.

It was a lovely day that first of September--so warm, and lambent, and
sunny-hued that St. Udo, weary with nights and days of ceaseless
exertion, ordered a halt in a cedar grove, and threw himself from his
jaded horse to rest a while.

His twenty followers, who were struggling after him on foot, were
overjoyed to throw themselves beside him, and soon most of the poor
fellows were fast asleep on their arms.

The following day there was a slight skirmish, in which but one, a mere
youth, was injured.

St. Udo was talking kindly to this youth, who lay quite still in a
corner listening to the whispered words of cheer with a faint and
hopeless smile, when a shadow fell across the sweet, dying face, and a
woman's gasp of terror fell upon St. Udo's ear. He turned to look upon
her, and started involuntarily.

There she drooped, with wild, grief-darkened eyes fastened on the boy,
her fair cheeks white with horror, her shapely hands clasped in anguish;
her snaky tresses lying low upon her sloping shoulders--a vision of
surpassing grace and dumb sorrow--Madam Estvan.

How came she there? Where came she from, who had lain entombed in a
holocaust of flame?

A spirit, was she? Ay, truly, a spirit of pity and grief, weeping over a
brave boy-soldier's end.

"God bless you, madam!" burst from St. Udo's lips.

She turned her tranced eye from its shocked scrutiny of the boy, and
lifted it in mute anguish to the colonel's. She did not recognize him in
that supreme moment of her woe.

"Is he dying, do you think?" whispered she, pressing close.

The sweet face turned with a smile of anguish at her voice, the dark
eyes opened on her lovely countenance with a far away look already in
their depths.

"Yes, yes, madam, I am dying," murmured the boy.

"Oh, Edgar! Edgar!" moaned the woman, in harrowing tones, "must you go?
I loved you so dearly, too--my last, my only hope on earth or in
Heaven--my _son_!"

"Ah, madam, you did not treat me as your son."

"Hush!" whispered she, in anguish. "I was not to blame for that. Your
father was to blame when he deserted us both, my poor boy. How could I
fight against fate? In self-defence I parted from you, but I have loved
you truly, Edgar."

"May God, to whom I go, forgive your cold rejection of me many times
when I have besought you on my knees to let me call you mother. From
place to place you have led me, keeping me at a distance all the while,
and now my sad, lonely life must end here. Oh, madam, you have been
cruel!"

She wept wildly, she raised him in her arms and kissed him many times,
but her lips framed no excuse.

"To think that I should find you here, my boy," moaned she, "when I sent
you North expressly for safety's sake. Why--why did you enter the army,
Edgar?"

"To find death," said the calm, dying voice.

She laid him down upon the straw, and raised her streaming eyes to St.
Udo Brand. They recognized him now, and grew hard and fierce. She rose,
and clutched him by the arm.

"Where is that fiend in human shape who calls himself Colonel
Calembours?" cried she, vehemently.

"I cannot tell," replied St. Udo. "He has played the traitor to the
North; he must be with Lee's army."

"He has played the traitor to _me_, and to that boy, _his son_!" she
exclaimed, vengefully. "He has deserted us for eighteen years, and now
my boy is dying. He threw me back among the flames three months ago in
Colonel Estvan's house as soon as he recognized in me _his wife_. Oh!
can such a monster escape justice?"

"Did you come here to-day expecting to find Colonel Calembours?"
inquired St. Udo, compassionately.

"I did. I have just come from a sickroom, which my terror drove me to
after my servants had rescued me from being consumed in the flames which
destroyed my only home. I hear that Monsieur Estvan was killed, and I
searched in every hospital in Richmond, and every jail, for some tidings
of the monster in case he might have been captured. Now, alas! I find my
son in the agonies of death."

She knelt again by the boy and kissed his cold lips, smiling so stilly.

St. Udo left the hapless pair together, and strode to the doorway of the
shed for a breath of Heaven's pure air; the despair, the misery behind
him were wringing his heart, adamantine as he was wont to call it.

St. Udo suddenly heard the beat of hoofs, and in a moment a Confederate
officer dashed in front of the tent and reined up.

"_Eh bien! Monsieur, mon ami_," chirped a familiar voice. "Well met, my
colonel. _Par ma foi._ I like this extravagantly--yes."

And the Chevalier de Calembours, dismounting from a magnificent
war-horse, performed a profound obeisance.

"You unhanged villain!" shouted St. Udo, scornfully.

A white face peered out from behind Colonel Brand. Madam Estvan glided
out, and put a nervous hand upon the chevalier's arm.

"Come here," whispered the wan lips, sadly.

He went with her into the tent, and looked at the sweet young face,
sealed with the smile of death, of a noble soldier lad.

"Colonel Calembours, look at your son," whispered madam.

The chevalier grew ghastly white. Truly this fair, smiling dead bore his
own sin-coarsened lineaments; but the woman! Who was she?

Just then there were heard shouts mingled with firing, and, ere the
chevalier's eyes had time to light upon that beautiful face, a random
ball struck him down at her feet. Like a bolt of retribution from
Heaven, it laid him across the senseless clay of his deserted son.

And, with a shriek that tingled in the shocked St. Udo's ears, the
lovely woman sank beside her dead, and the dark blood of her perfidious
husband oozed onto her dainty robes, and washed her trembling hands;
and, turning to the battle, he saw no more.

In half an hour St. Udo led back his soldiers, and found her still
there, with the senseless man's head in her lap, and her soft hands
deftly dressing his gaping wound.

"He will live," said she, quite calmly. "I have snatched him back from
death; he will live for me."

"Can you forgive such perfidy as his?" asked the wondering St. Udo.

"Yes, if he will take me to his heart again," she said, with a flash of
ineffable yearning. "I will forget his indifference to me, his injustice
to this dead boy. I will be happy to be his bond slave, if he will own
me as his wife evermore, for--I love him."

How passionately she breathed the sublime words, "I love him!" How
God-like was the forgiveness of such sins as his for such a plea!

St. Udo forced some drops of brandy into his unfortunate comrade's lips,
and in time had the satisfaction to hear a deep sigh escape him.

"Calembours," exclaimed St. Udo, "look up and speak to this noble
woman."

The chevalier opened his eyes, and strove to see her through the dim
gloom, but vainly.

"My husband!" breathed the lady, with bitter tears, "will you cast me
off for the third time? Ah, don't break my heart! My poor Edgar is dead,
and I have not a soul but you, and after all these years of separation.
Oh, Ladislaus!"

Her face sank on his breast, she clung to him with both eager hands.

He glared about him like some savage animal. He forgot his pain and his
capture, in rage at such a proposition, and answered with an insulting
laugh.

"Oh--ha, ha!" screamed he, with the enjoyment of a hyena. "This maniac
mistakes the Chevalier de Calembours for her husband Ladislaus.
Excellent! _nom de Dieu!_ most excellent. Sweet madam, your troubles
have crazed your brain. A chance resemblance has deceived you--_mon
coeur_! You have mistaken your man."

She heard him with a gasp of horror.

She extricated herself and stood off, a dark shadow in the gray night.

"You repudiate me once more?" she cried, in a thrilling voice. "Traitor,
renegade--spy! You are not worthy of a woman's love; but you shall feel
a woman's vengeance!"

She snatched a stiletto from her bosom, and threw herself upon the
prostrate rascal, but was caught by St. Udo and disarmed.

"Enough, madam," said he, icily; "the miscreant shall expiate his
villainies by death, but not at your hands."

She submitted in silence, and without one backward look upon the man who
had been her life's curse, she galloped back with her attendants, to
watch over her dead boy, and to keep him from the dews of Heaven and the
birds of prey for many a dread day.

There is yet another scene to paint in this series of life-pictures,
gentle reader.

It is the last.

On through dim night sped the little force, under a rising moon eclipsed
by drifting clouds, and met face to face a regiment in full march.

The leaders anxiously gazed at each other, hoping to encounter friends,
but in the gloom their uniforms were undistinguishable.

"What regiment is yours?" demanded St. Udo, at last.

There was a pause, brief and ominous.

"What is yours?" cautiously returned the officer in command.

"The--Vermont," said Udo Brand.

"Then, in heaven's name, take it! Fire!" commanded the other.

A simultaneous flash along; each line distinctly revealed every face,
and then the front ranks fell in the windrows under the murderous
volley.

"Again!" shouted the Confederate leader.

Again his men stepped forward, aimed at St. Udo's handful, and again the
brave Vermonters melted away like smoke before the wind.

Then Colonel Brand gave the orders for retreat, and sullenly took the
rear of his diminished band. But the foe pressed close, and a chance
shot killed his horse, and a flying pursuer dealt the rider a stunning
blow, and left him for dead; and the battle-storm rolled away, and was
lost in the distant woods.

And when the shrouded moon was shining (three black stripes across its
disk) upon the man lying on his broken sword, with his head upon the
neck of his pulseless horse, he heard a rustle in the dewy leaves, and
footsteps soft and sure approaching, and he raised his dark, dim eyes
supplicatingly, for he thought of faithful friends who might be seeking
him.

But a long, lean hound was baying hoarsely, and its red eyes gleamed
like chysolites, and it led, step by step, the shuffling feet of a
haggard man who long had sought St. Udo.

And the skulker came to his side, and looked in his face with demoniac
eagerness, and plunged the dastardly dagger hilt-deep into his breast,
and stood erect with a long, wild, triumphant laugh.

So the moon rode on in clearer majesty, and the night-dews dripped upon
the slain--for "the dearest tears which heaven sheds are her dews upon
the dead hero's face."




CHAPTER X.

MARGARET AGAIN A WANDERER.


Heavily passed the days of Margaret Walsingham, having, as we know, that
secret apprehension on her mind which the vision of the battle-field had
cast, and waiting with sick anxiety for news from the war, which might
explain to her what that vision might mean.

Heavily pass the days, and October's brown era came sighing down to
strip the trees.

Lady Juliana was having her last ball at Hautville Park before her
visitors should throng back to the city for the opening season, and for
the second time she insisted upon her companion being present. She was
so determined to have her way that Margaret had perforce to obey, all
unconscious of the trap which was making ready for her. The mighty rooms
of the chateau glittered with a thousand wax tapers; garlands of richest
flowers festooned the walls; bewildering strains of music intoxicated
the senses.

My lady, the loveliest being there, shimmered about here and there, the
beauty of the ball, the adored of half the gentlemen.

Miss Walsingham, seeing no reason why she should be among the revelers,
when her heart was so heavy with cares for the last of the Brands, soon
glided into a small Saracenic cloister, which was lighted dimly by a
single iron lamp, and from it watched with wistful and still tender
interest the fairy-like figure of her Lady Julie.

She had not been there a quarter of an hour, when the Duke of Piermont,
passing through hurriedly, as if late for some engagement, caught sight
of her, and stopped short before her.

"My dear Miss Walsingham! To see you among us is a pleasure indeed.
You'll waltz with me?"

"I am strictly a spectator, your grace--thanks."

"What! Not even walk through the Polonaise with me? Well, I shall
forswear the mazes also. Will you come to the conservatory? I think
there is some amazing flower of Lady Juliana's out--blooms once in a
hundred years or so. Come and see it."

"I think that your presence is expected in the ball-room. Lieutenant
Falconcourt has been dispatched to seek for you."

His grace glanced at his tablets and frowned.

"Too late to keep my promise now," he muttered, "so I may as well follow
my own inclinations. I shall remain conveniently invisible, with your
permission, Miss Walsingham."

"Your grace must not count upon my permission."

"Hulloa!" cried a voice "Cousin Julie is on the tenterhooks of
impatience for you, Piermont. You are too late to open the ball with
her. Oh, do I see Miss Walsingham?"

Lieutenant Falconcourt joined the pair with looks of curiosity, and
rendered his respects to my lady's companion.

"Remain here a few moments, while I see Lady Juliana," said the young
duke, hurriedly pressing her hand.

In a moment he was gone, and Harry Falconcourt was in his place by her
side.

"My dear Miss Walsingham," he said, half gayly, but with a slight
appearance of anxiety in his manner, which did not escape her notice,
"do you know that you have cast a spell over our duke, which he seems
inclined to wear under the very eyes of my Cousin Julie?"

"You cannot surely mean----"

"He is perfectly bewitched; and as I know you are quite unconscious of
it, I fore warn you."

Margaret sat silent for some time, plunged in an uneasy reverie. This
thing gave her a disagreeable shock for which she was not prepared. She
inwardly reviewed her position at Hautville Park, and a cold chill of
disappointment crept into her heart.

Must she leave her giddy darling, Lady Julie?

"I cannot believe it--I will not!" she exclaimed, with momentary fire.
"His grace is not so foolish as to intend this thing. You exaggerate his
emotions in regard to me."

The fairy-like form of my lady floated past the draperied door on the
arm of Piermont, and as she passed, her eyes sought the pair in the
cloister with visible triumph; then she turned to his grace again.

"You see," said Margaret, eagerly clinging to the first straw of hope,
"they perfectly understand each other, and your warning is superfluous."

Falconcourt smiled, but dropped the subject, and applied himself with
considerable relish to the task of entertaining my lady's companion.

As long as she could see his grace, the duke, and Lady Juliana amicably
promenading, or revolving in each other's arms, she spoke well and
admirably, but the instant that they parted, she became quite
_distrait_, and nervously dreaded the appearance of the duke.

So agitated did she become with this threatened return before her eyes,
that her face became white as chalk and her tones husky and indistinct.

"Excuse me if I leave you," she said, at last, desperately.

"I may return, if I overcome this faintness."

She had just sufficient strength to slip through the outer door, of the
cloister into the cool hall, and to make her way to a balcony, where
night breezes swept crisply over her, and the upper edge of the round,
red moon smote her face with the glow of one of Raphael's angels.

There she stood, gazing down upon the dark trees, her heart a chaos of
troubled reverie.

"On the first of September, at the battle of Chantilly, it is feared."

Voices of men in eager colloquy; two figures lounging on the terrace
steps beneath.

"Where did you see it?"

"In the last _War Gazette_--Colonel Brand's company almost cut to
pieces, and the colonel killed.

"Poor fellow! Do they know it here?"

Margaret turned and walked with a steady step to her own room, stabbed
through the heart with this sudden dagger.

On the first of September!

The tidal swell of memory broke over her reeling senses with a dull
admonition of something more dreadful than death.

It was not a gallant death in the midst of battle she had to mourn; it
was not a brave end to a brilliant day of heroism. No--by the murk of
that ghastly vision, by the shadow of the skulker among the dead, it was
murder!

Late at night she was disturbed in her chamber by a visit from her Lady
Julie.

"I want to say a few words to you, Miss Walsingham."

Margaret looked at the flushed face, the unsmiling lips, with wonder.

"I have been listening to an extraordinary list of your perfections from
the Duke of Piermont," she commenced, trembling, "and I find from the
intimate terms in which he mentions you, that you are no strangers to
each other. As I never anticipated the possibility of being rivaled by
my companion, I wish you distinctly to understand that I intend to brook
no intermeddling of any one of that class. You came between me and my
betrothed before, and drove him to his death; you shall not mar my
prospects again for want of a distinct understanding on the subject. If
I had known that Miss Blair was the woman who had come into possession
of St. Udo Brand's property, no inducement would have betrayed me into
taking her as my companion, and thus laying myself open to her
machinations a second time."

"Lady Julie," said Margaret, whose face had grown terribly pale, "I am
not worthy of these ungenerous imputations. Reconsider what you have
said and treat me more justly."

"Did I bring you here to be my mentor?" cried my lady. "Did I ever
suppose that you could meddle with my destiny? Here is the Duke of
Piermont, who was ready to kiss my foot-prints, openly setting me aside
and searching for a woman who acts as my private attendant or companion,
and raving over her perfections. Have I employed you here to be my
rival, Miss Walsingham? Have I set you over myself?"

She stood confessed at last; her grudging and jealous soul looked forth
from her sapphire eyes, and recognized Margaret Walsingham as her mental
superior, and consequently her enemy.

No twinges of gratitude deterred her from her jealous rage; no love,
begot by her patient Margaret's goodness and devotion, stirred her
small, chill heart.

The spiteful blow was struck upon the woman who had saved her life.

"As long as I could be a solace or a help to you, Lady Julie," faltered
Margaret, pale as death, "I wished for no greater happiness than to be
with you, and to serve you faithfully, _faithfully_, my lady, whatever
you may in your anger say; but now, I see that my influence has passed
away, and my duty is to leave you."

"You leave too late," cried my lady, tauntingly. "You have caught your
fish and can afford to leave the fish-pond now, I suppose. Really, I
think it no bad thing for a sea-captain's daughter to become the Duchess
of Piermont and the mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste."

"Lady Julie! Lady Julie!" cried Margaret, turning away with an
unutterable heart-pang, "I have loved you well, and should not be
treated thus. I desire to be neither the wife of the Duke of Piermont
nor the mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste."

She opened her wardrobe and began, with trembling hands, to array
herself in her bonnet and cloak, and to arrange a few things in her
small travelling-bag, tears dripping slowly all the time.

"What are you going to do?" sneered my lady, watching her movements with
incredulity.

"To go away--to find another home, Lady Julie."

"What! so suddenly? Without bidding his grace farewell? How cruel of
Miss Walsingham to treat her enamored admirer so."

Margaret took no further notice of my lady, but hastened her movements
toward departure.

"Had you not better wait till the morning?" said Lady Juliana,
fretfully, "and see my father before you go? Or are you anxious to go in
this absurd manner so that you may blason to the whole world how badly I
have treated you?"

"This interview is safe with me," said Margaret, turning on the stairs;
"and you may smooth over my departure as you please."

"And where is Bignetta to send your boxes, and where is my father to
send your salary?"

"To the Lambeth express office until I send for them. Farewell, my
lady."

With a sigh in which there was no bitter resentment, though her injuries
had not been slight, poor Margaret Walsingham flitted down the silent
staircase, and, heedless of the servants, who were putting out the
lights, and who stared curiously at her, she went out into the park.

The night wind moaned drearily among the stately trees; a Brazilian bird
in my lord's aviary uttered a piercing shriek of warning, as a hoarse
baying of a hound broke from the kennels.

Down by the gray stone fountain, where a laughing naiad flung jets of
water from her golden comb, Margaret turned back and looked upon my
lady's lighted windows as Eve looked upon guarded Paradise.

How she had filled her whole heart and fed her boundless love with this
girl.

Was it Heaven's will that all whom she loved should sting her thus? She
was a waif sent wandering through a world which shrank from her as if
Cain's mark burned upon her brow?

So Margaret Walsingham turned again and drifted down into the world
which had never a beating pulse for her, and went to find--she knew not
where--a place to work in, a sphere to fill, a duty to perform.

She was friendless, and heart-hungered, and despitefully wronged; but
God was her keeper.

       *       *       *       *       *

Poor Margaret had been travelling about from place to place for the past
fortnight, in the vain hope of finding a situation.

Her money had leaked away somewhere--there were plenty who were quite
willing to rid her of the scant burden, and now, as she looked into her
purse, she found but one silver-piece upon which to exist through as
much of the murky future as her anxious eyes could pierce.

The Marquis of Ducie, with the prodigality of a great mind, had been
pleased to send the sum of five pounds to the Lambeth express office for
Miss Walsingham, with the promise of a payment at some future time of
what salary was still due.

The five pounds had weathered fourteen days of traveling, extortion, and
inexperience, but it had come to its last shilling now, and Margaret was
desperately in earnest as she held the lean purse in her hand and asked
herself the question, "What shall I do now?"

She looked about the smoky houses, and down at the broad river, where
the forest of masts bristled between her and the dappled horizon.

She wandered down to one of the docks, and seating herself upon a coil
of rope, gazed absently at the green-tinged water below. Poor Margaret's
heart was so absorbed in her musings, that she did not notice that the
man who was stumbling over a length of tarry chain, in his eagerness to
reach her, was his grace, the Duke of Piermont.




CHAPTER XI.

UNREQUITED LOVE.


"Good gracious, Miss Walsingham! Is it possible that this can be you?"

He seized her hand with a pressure which told of his delight; his tones
were thrilling with glad excitement; his face was beaming with joy at
this queer meeting.

He drew her up from her rough seat, and, still retaining her hand, made
her walk with him, as if he was determined not to lose her again, and he
feasted his eyes upon her face, utterly heedless of the group of
gayly-dressed people he had left, and rattled on with a storm of
inquiries.

"Where did you disappear to? No one could give me any satisfaction about
you, and I sought you in every direction. Come away from this confounded
dock. What are you doing here alone? Will you walk with me, and let me
have a conversation with you? Don't deny me this time, Miss Walsingham.
We're not at Hautville Park."

They walked through the crooked lanes of the town, and took a road which
led anon to mown fields, and to furze commons, and to holts of scrawny
hazel, where the red clouds of evening could gaze upon their deeper
reflections, unbroken by toiling barge, or floating timber, or
stationary ships; and where pleasant willows made flickering shadows,
and dipped into the rippling current.

"Now," said the young duke, when nothing but the bleating of lambs or
the lowing of oxen was likely to interrupt them, "tell me why you left
Hautville Park, and what you are doing here?"

"Why do you put me through such an inquisition?" asked Margaret. "When I
left Hautville Park I wished to be dropped by Lady Juliana's friends.
Your grace will confer an obligation by remembering this."

"I do not aspire to the honor of being Lady Juliana Ducie's friend,
therefore beg to be considered exempt from your prohibition."

"On your own behalf, then, your grace, I am compelled to forbid any
further interest in my movements. My sphere in life utterly removes me
from your attention, and my path will probably never cross yours after
to-day."

"Miss Walsingham," cried the young duke, fervently, "I will not let you
away this time without hearing me. I want to tell you that I formed an
opinion concerning you when my eyes first picked you out at the marquis'
dinner-table, which each hurried interview since has only strengthened,
and I have wished to tell you ever since that evening what a profound
impression your graces of mind have made upon me. Whatever wrongs the
world may accuse you of, I have the utmost confidence in you. I know
that you will pursue none but a noble, unselfish course--that you are
the purest, ay, and the bravest woman whom I ever met."

Margaret was quite silenced by this outburst, and walked on almost
frightened by the novelty of her position.

It struck her that the man walking by her side and gazing so eagerly
into her face was the only stanch friend she had on earth.

For a brief moment she had a glimpse of the sweetness which gladdens the
life of a woman beloved, and then she woke to calmer reality, and put
the vision from her firmly.

"I am afraid that you think all this very premature," resumed his grace,
again taking up the tale, "and so I suppose it is, to you. But it is not
so to me. I could not have a deeper devotion and admiration for you
years hence than I have now. Dear Miss Walsingham, will you make me
immeasurably happy by bestowing your hand upon me?"

"I am compelled to reject your grace's proposal."

The pair walked mechanically on for some minutes, the young man whirling
his cane furiously, Margaret eyeing with tear-laden eyes the dusty
turnpike before her.

"I think you had better take a rest for a few minutes," said his grace,
when he had whirled the gold top of his cane and had nothing else to do;
"we have been walking quite fast, and are at least a mile and a quarter
from the village."

He spread his perfumed handkerchief on a flat stone, and Margaret,
obeying an impulse the very opposite of that which she intended, sank
down wearily upon it.

"I am not surprised that you have refused my offer so decidedly," said
the young duke, returning to the attack as he paced restlessly back and
forth in front of her "when I remember how utterly unknown my temper and
disposition are to you, and how recent our acquaintanceship still is. I
am ready to admit my own presumption in addressing you. But Miss
Walsingham dear Miss Walsingham, may I hope that when you know me
better, when you have studied me long enough, and have completely made
up your mind about all that is bad or good in me, you will then permit
me to address you as I have done to-night, and say yes or no, with more
justice to me."

"Why do you come to me with this request? Have you not been paying court
to the Marquis of Ducie's daughter all summer? I ask you this before I
can assure myself that your avowal is an honor to me. Your answer cannot
influence in the slightest my decision."

"I give you my word of honor, Miss Walsingham, that I have not been
paying court to Lady Juliana Ducie; if you wish to know why, I found
that her heartless desertion of St. Udo Brand, after he lost his
property, outweighed with me her fascination; and, having accidentally
become acquainted with the whole story, I naturally preferred to shun
the fawning lip and clasping hand, and the craven heart of a Judas in
woman's lovely seeming, that I might find her contrast in Margaret
Walsingham."

"Do not mention the dead," said Margaret, deeply moved. "I can never,
never forget that I was the unwilling cause of his early death."

She was weak and exhausted, though as yet she did not know it, and she
bowed her head to weep in an abandonment of grief, which came upon her
unawares and would not be set aside.

His grace stopped with folded arms to look at her. Here was the woman
who was enriched by the death of a man who had insulted her, mourning
his untimely end with bitter tears. A vision of the woman who had
plighted him her troth rose up to confront this grief-shaken figure with
decorous sighs, and shallow regrets, and heartless unconcern, and he put
away the red-lipped siren from his thoughts with an execration of scorn,
and clung anew to faithful Margaret.

"Should it be ten years hence that you relent, let me try my fate a
second time," he cried, grasping her hand in his increased fervor of
admiration.

"Leave me," murmured Margaret. "I have given you my answer--crown your
acts of kindness by leaving me."

The wind swept over the flat moors with a bleaker sound; she gathered
her mantle closer, and rose to face the east--sad-colored as her own
future.

"And where are you going?" asked the Duke of Piermont. "Surely you are
not going to hide yourself from all your friends? You will let me know
where you purpose residing until you procure the situation you are in
search of?"

I wonder what his grace would have said, had he known how utterly
destitute she was--that she had but one shilling at that moment in her
pocket--that the only friend to whom she could or would apply was her
Father in Heaven?

"I cannot answer your questions," said Margaret, holding out her hand to
him; "but since you are so generous with your interest, I shall let you
into the secret of my future movements, always with the understanding
that the Marquis of Ducie and his friends shall not know. Now, my lord,
I have nothing more to say to you, except to thank you for the intended
honor which it would be ridiculous in me to accept. See, there is a
shower coming up, and you will get wet before you can return to the
village. Good-by."

"But you--Good Heaven! Miss Walsingham, where are you to go?"

She waved her hand toward a farm-house, and walked swiftly away as if
she would seek shelter there.

And the last that he saw of her, was her black garments like a speck on
the murky road, seeming to walk in between two great thunderous clouds,
and to be swallowed up.

Margaret kept hurrying on, so absorbed in her musings that she passed
the farm-house, where she might have found a hospitable shelter for the
night, and hurried down the lonely road away from the river, where the
rising wind waited for her at sudden corners, and the black clouds
descended nearer with the darkening night.

And she hurried on faster, and her eyes pierced the gathering blackness,
with the sad and weary gaze of one whose heart carries a secret sorrow,
and tears fell slowly from them, which blurred the way, and blotted out
the lowering sky.

Where had she wandered to?

There was no friendly light from any cottage window to guide her, no
sheep-bell or halloo of herd-boy. Her clothes were heavy with moisture,
and she was very tired and very desolate.

How her head ached, and her arms!

Oh! if she could just be so blessed as to sink upon some kind woman's
bed this very moment, and sleep!

Perhaps she would fall in some lime-pit, or ditch, or into the slimy
lock of some canal, and die miserably.

Who would weep for her if she died? Who cared for Margaret Walsingham?

And the thought of her utter desolation overcome her, as weariness,
hunger, and storm had failed to do.

She crouched down beneath a furze-bush, and, resting her hot and beating
head upon her hands, wept, poor soul!

And then came unconsciousness and utter oblivion.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I declare, John, she knows me! Here, take a sup o' this barley-water,
my lamb. Dear heart! she's sensible once more. Ain't there another drop
than this, John? Mayhap it's plenty." Margaret looked with languid eyes
upon the rugged figure of a man, clad in dingy red-dust habiliments, who
was standing between her and a small window, with his head sunk in a
curious way between his hands.

His brawny shoulders were heaving, and his rough shock of hair trembled
like sea-grass in a hurricane, while a gurgling sort of noise issued
from him.

Had a fit of laughter seized him, or was the man crying?

Whose bed was she lying in, hung with red calico curtains?

Where had she seen that figure in the clay-colored smock before?

And then Margaret saw a sallow-faced woman of spare figure bending over
her, with a tin cup in her hand, and a glistening channel down each
cheek.

"Mrs. Doane!" she breathed, in wonder.

"There I knowed it! Hark to that, John!" cried the woman, with an
exultant chuckle, which threatened to be strangled by a sob.

"Didn't she call me by name, the blessed lamb?"

She raised the blessed lamb in her arms, who, truth to say, scarcely
recognized herself by such an unwonted title, and held the tin cup to
her lips.

Sweeter to Margaret than Lusitanian nectar such as Chianti yields was
her drink of barley water.

Margaret without working out the queer problem of how she came there,
fell into a deep and quiet sleep.

And between sleeping profoundly, eating morsels of food with ravenous
enjoyment, lying placidly wakeful and watching without curiosity the
movements of her two nurses, Margaret saw the young moon grow into a
full, round orb, which glimmered in a halo through the bottle-green
glass of the cracked window, and silvered her from head to foot, each
long, still night; and at last strength came to her, and with it
recollection.

"Did I come to you, Mr. Doane?" she asked, one evening, when that person
was sitting by her bedside peacefully smoking his pipe, and listening
with pride to the voice of Johnnie in the kitchen chanting his spelling
lesson.

"Come to us? No, miss, you didn't but we come to you," replied the
bricklayer, stuffing down the ashes further into his pipe.

"I want to know about it, please; I do not understand at all how I am at
Lynthorpe."

"Where was you when you was took bad?"

Margaret pondered a long time.

"The last I distinctly remember is of being a mile and a half from
Rotherhithe."

"Lor-a-musy! and didn't nobody give ye a seat in their wagon down here?
Did you walk all the way, and so light of head like?" She put her thin
hand to her forehead again.

"I remember of being lost on a common outside of Rotherhithe," she
answered, "and I do not know what became of me after that. I sat down to
rest, and I suppose I must have been there all night. Is it long ago?"

"What date was it, dear miss, that you was lost on the moor? Can ye mind
that?"

"It was the seventh of October."

"Just think o' that now! It was two days after that when I found you
sitting at the foot of a hay-rick in Farmer Bracon's land, a mile from
here. You was a sorry sight, but I know'd yer again, and came close to
yer. You was neither sleeping nor not sleeping, but whispering to
yourself; so I brought you home to the wife, and she and me we've nursed
ye through, thank heaven! And here's the papers as was found on ye,
miss, by the wife," rising and producing them from a carefully-locked
little box in the cupboard; "and here's the purse with a shilling in it,
which was all that we saw with ye, and you a sending me a guinea reg'lar
every quarter for Johnnie's schooling, for a kind miss, as ye are."

Margaret lay quiet for a while; her deep gray eyes were full of tears,
her bleached face tremulous with smiles.

"Heaven is taking great care of me, and I have much to be thankful for.
Kind John Doane and his wife, for instance."

The bricklayer puffed hard, and slowly spelled out her meaning, and
arrived at it with a snort of surprised pleasure.

"Is it Betsy and me that you want to be thankful for? You as is our
guarding angel, what made a man of Johnnie as can read most as well as
the curate himself. And haven't every one of the nine of us, down to the
babby, felt as if we had a angel under the roof for the last three
weeks?"

"Have I been three weeks ill?"

"Three weeks, dear miss; seven days of 'em you wasn't in your head at
all, and Dr. Ramsey weren't easy about you--weren't easy at all. It were
inflammation of the brain."

"And you out of your pittance--you have nursed me through all this?"

"And proud to do it, miss."

"But if I had died, who would make up to you the doctor's bill, or your
own ease?"

"Dear miss, don't!" His hard hand went up to wipe the starting tears.
"If you had died, it's not us as would stop our mourning to think of the
mite you cost us. You ain't like the rest of the Peerage--you comes down
to we; you had a heart, so you had, and felt for we, and we never
forgets that."

"Kind John Doane, how shall I repay you?"

She buried her face and wept.

The cheerful crackle of a fagot fire came from the kitchen grate, long
spurts of yellow light outlined upon the wall Mrs. Doane's figure as she
danced the youngest toddler on her knee, and Margaret fell asleep to the
words:

    "Dance to your daddy,
    My bonny babby;
    Dance to your daddy,
    Do, dear, do-o!
    You'll get a wee bit fishie,
    In a wee bit dishie,
    And a whirligigie,
    And a buttered scone!"




CHAPTER XII.

ST. UDO BRAND NOT DEAD.


Margaret was sitting up at last in the bricklayer's doorway, muffled in
shawls, and shuddering nervously at every jarring sound about her.

A chariot was approaching the bricklayer's cottage from the village of
Lynthorpe, and on its panel glittered the arms of Castle Brand.

Already the coachman, Symonds, had seen the invalid at the door, and was
talking to some one inside, and in the next minute the chariot was drawn
up before the door, and the familiar figure of little Dr. Gay was
stepping out.

"Found at last, my dear girl!" cried he, radiantly; "and a fine search
we have had of it. Bless my soul, though, you aren't too strong yet!
Don't be frightened, dear."

The thin, trembling hands were clasped nervously on the swelling breast.

Margaret looked piteously around, as if for succor.

"I need not be, I hope, sir," she said, faintly.

"No, I'm sure not," cried the doctor, pressing her hand; "although you
have contrived to hide yourself from us for eight months, just as though
you did fear your old friends. But, now that you have failed so signally
in your endeavor to work for your own bread, perhaps you will see your
duty plain before you, and won't refuse to fulfill the will which has
been so long and uselessly withstood. Hey! my dear?"

The pale woman lifted her dark eyes resolutely, her delicate nostril
quivered.

"Dr. Gay," said she, "you must see that I am in no state to discuss
business matters with you."

"By the lord Harry! I should think not," cried the little doctor, "so we
won't discuss 'em at all; we'll just quietly do as we are bid."

"You have sought me when I wished to be lost to you," said Margaret,
"but that can't make much difference now. I have long made up my mind
what I am to do. Dr. Gay, I tell you I shall not go to Seven-Oak
Waaste."

"Miss Margaret," he said, reassuredly, "we sha'n't say another word
about these affairs until you are stronger; but you can't stay here, you
know, so just come along with me, and Mrs. Gay can take care of you for
a while. Does that suit better?"

She calmed herself presently and thought over it with a forlorn feeling
of helplessness.

"Thanks, you are very kind," said she, "but why can't I stay here? I
hope to repay these kind friends when I am well again."

"Rubbish!" flouted the doctor, good-humoredly. "You don't feel it,
perhaps, but for all that you must be an additional burden on the
woman's time, which money can never repay. Come home with me, my dear,
and get strong, and then talk over your affairs with Davenport and me
like a sensible woman."

Her head drooped sadly on her breast, and a scarlet blush tinged her
poor cheek. She felt the imputation keenly, although Mrs. Doane had
crept close to her chair, and was eagerly whispering how little of a
burden she had thought her dear, kind miss!

"I must be a Marplot no more," whispered Margaret to her humble friend,
with a weary sigh. "I have done so much harm already to everybody that I
must be very careful, dear Mrs. Doane."

The bright tears were dropping fast from her wistful, remorseful eyes,
and her sensitive nature urged her hard to part from this faithful heart
before she should do it a hurt; so that the little doctor had the
satisfaction of gaining his point, after all, and wrapped her up from
the autumn mists with a gratified glow.

How she wept as she tottered to the sumptuous close carriage and sank
among the velvet cushions! Had she been leaving a prince's palace the
tender soul could not have felt it more.

"Doant 'ee cry, dear miss," blurted the honest bricklayer, who had come
home to dinner, and was wistfully watching the departure, "yer luck's
took a fort'nate turn. Praise be blessed for't, so doant 'ee affront the
Lord with them tears. God be wi' ye, dear miss, we woan't forgit ye, nor
you us--that I kin bet on."

So she was forced to leave them, though her heart turned sadly toward
them in their sordid hut, and fain would have sunned itself in that
sweet love which never shone in her own dim path of life.

In the dusk of that November day Margaret Walsingham entered Dr. Gay's
neat residence in Regis, ostensibly to be under his immediate care.

She was with him because, poor soul, she had no other home which she
would enter. He took her there because he hoped to overcome her
half-sick fancies about Castle Brand, and to send her forth to take
possession of the fortune which was, to all intents and purposes, her
own.

For a few days the guest kept her room, and her own counsel, but at the
end of a week she came out to the parlor, with a grave, firm face, and
declared herself quite recovered.

The doctor was sitting in his arm-chair, by a cozy, crackling fire, and
was absently trotting a bouncing baby of ten months on his knee, while
he anxiously pored over a huge medical book at his elbow; and Mrs. Gay
was stitching a cambric frill in her easy chair opposite, and watching
the clumsy nurse with a face of long-suffering patience.

And Margaret, gliding into the room in her thread-bare black robes, and,
with a gentle yet resolute face, seemed like the apparition of some
tragedy queen coming upon the stage where the farce was still enacting.

"Ah! Good-evening, good-evening, my dear Miss Walsingham!" cried the
doctor, jumping up and dumping the baby unceremoniously into his wife's
lap. "Take this chair and this footstool. Are you better?"

"Thanks. I am well now," said Margaret, quietly seating herself. "And I
would like to confer with you and Mr. Davenport upon my future
prospects."

"Never mind 'em now, Miss Margaret," said the doctor, kindly. "You are
far from strong yet."

"Please summon Mr. Davenport," returned she.

"Stubborn as ever, my dear," grumbled he, laughing. "You're pretty quiet
about it, but you will have your way."

"Yes, I must have my way," said Margaret, with a sad smile.

So Dr. Gay bustled off, and brought the lawyer back with him, and
presented their ward, sitting alone by the fire; Mrs. Gay having sighed
out her regrets that her poor health sent her to bed so early, and
retired thither.

"Gad! Miss Walsingham," blurted Mr. Davenport, shaking hands. "Your
adventures haven't agreed well with you. Why, you're about as gaunt as
my walking stick!"

"I am quite well for all that," said she, somewhat eagerly, "and am, of
course, anxious to arrange my future before me."

The executors sat down opposite her, full of expectation.

"It seems that you are aware of Captain Brand's reported death," said
the lawyer, briskly: "therefore that obstacle is removed from your way,
and you can hesitate no longer in taking possession of Seven-Oak Waaste.
Is that what you wish to say?"

"I have decided what I shall do with the property," she said, in a
melancholy voice, "and I have summoned you here to announce my wishes to
you."

"Are they to be taken down in legal form?" sneered the lawyer.

"Yes," she replied, humbly. "I wish to do some good while I have the
power, with money which would only be a curse to me, and would drag my
soul down to despair. I am resolved to sell Seven-Oak Waaste, and found
a charitable institution with the proceeds."

The executors stared aghast in her face, so cold and hopeless, but they
read no faltering there.

"Good heavens!" ejaculated the little doctor, in a fright, "she'll do
it, you see."

"Well, madam, of course your will is law," said the old lawyer, grimly,
"but you can't have it obeyed immediately for all that. The year
mentioned in the will is not finished yet; and that puts obstacle number
one in the way of your scheme; and St. Udo Brand's death has not been
proved yet, and that puts obstacle number two in the way of your scheme.
You must wait four months yet, you see."

Her face fell, and she sank immediately into apathy, which neither of
the executors sought to rouse her from, and soon she bade them
good-night, and went to her room.

"Obstinate as a mule," muttered Mr. Davenport, as he and his colleague
sat nearer the fire, and sipped their mild punch. "By George, I never
was so angry at a woman before. What does she expect to end in?"

"I expect her to end in a mad house," returned the doctor, with an
uneasy look toward the door. "She has all the symptoms of incipient
insanity."

"Incipient tomfoolery!" growled the lawyer, contemptuously. "You don't
catch a strong-willed woman like that turning crazy. She always was a
mystery to me, you know."

Some weeks passed, the executors professed to be searching for the legal
proofs of Colonel Brand's death. Davenport had written to Washington
desiring particulars. In reality they were merely amusing their willful
ward by these formalities, having not the slightest doubt of the
colonel's decease; and impatiently hoping for some change of resolve in
Margaret Walsingham.

But that aimless, hopeless period of Margaret's history quickly passed
away, and it had fitted her well for the strange, pathetic, wondrous end
to which she now was fast approaching with reluctant feet.

She sat with Mrs. Gay and the baby in the doctor's cozy parlor, one
blustering evening in the end of November. The green curtains were drawn
warmly over the misty panes, the little fire flickered cheerily in the
brass-knobbed grate, and the baby crowed lustily in his languid mother's
lap, almost forcing a smile from her dejectedly drooping lips in spite
of her chronic melancholy, when the doctor's step was heard on the
passage, and a shuffling sound, as of another arrival, and the doctor
called in a strange voice for his wife.

"Harriet, will you come here?"

She slowly arose and placed the child in Margaret's eager arms, and
shaking her head forebodingly, left the room. Margaret was happily
unconscious of all save Franky's pretty face.

Presently the lady came back with uplifted eyebrows, and placed some
wine upon the side-table, and brought her own vinaigrette and put it
beside the decanter.

"The doctor has something to say to you. Miss Walsingham," said she, at
last. "I will take Franky up-stairs for awhile, and Dr. Gay says that he
is anxious that you should prepare your mind for a very unexpected turn
of your affairs."

She took the child and vanished from the room, leaving Margaret gazing
after her with a vague feeling of terror.

"What has occurred, I wonder?" thought she. "Something is wrong."

She half rose, intending to seek Dr. Gay, but he appeared at the door,
and shutting it close, approached her with a manifest tremor of
apprehension.

"My wife has told you that I have something strange to say to you,"
began the little doctor, seizing her hand and pressing it closely. "I
would like you to endeavor to form some conception of it before I
startle you with it."

She was watching him with a wondering eye. His perturbation, his
anxiety, his eagerness amazed her--she had never seen the mild little
man so violently agitated.

"I can form no conception of your meaning," said she; "be so kind as to
explain it in a word."

"My dear girl, we've made a queer mistake, that's all," faltered he,
smoothing her hand anxiously. "Now, do you think over every possibility,
and pick out the most unlikely--I don't want to startle you."

"Nothing can startle me now that St. Udo Brand is----"

She stopped abruptly and gazed fixedly in his face where yet lingered
the traces of a serious shock; and her great gray eyes grew black as
midnight while her cheeks flashed forth a splendid carmine.

"You don't intend to say that he is not dead?" cried she, sharply.

The doctor continued smoothing her hand; she snatched it away and
clasped both in an access of emotion.

"Tell me--tell me!" screamed Margaret wildly.

"St. Udo has come back, sure enough," said the doctor, putting his arm
about her and trying to soothe her. "St. Udo Brand came home to-day and
walked straight into Davenport's office."

Her great eyes drank in the assurance in his face, her parted lips
quivered into almost a wild smile of triumph, and she clung to the
little doctor, crying out:

"St. Udo is not dead--not dead! Oh, my heart, he is not dead!"

And then she sank on her chair and lifted her sparkling eyes, as it
were, to Heaven, and whispered:

"Thank Heaven! thank Heaven! Oh, I can never grieve again."

"Come, that's a right pleasant way of taking it," cried the doctor,
quite charmed. "I was so afraid that you would take up the old hatred as
soon as he came back to dispute the will with you, especially as he was
thought to be so well out of the way."

"Hush," smiled Margaret, with the same glad radiance. "I can think of
nothing just now except my gratitude to Providence for giving him back
to us instead of branding me with the mark of Cain. Poor, erring, noble
St. Udo! I shall never cross his will again. He shall learn to-night how
guiltless Margaret Walsingham was of his disappointment. Now I can sign
away the Brand property, although the year is not out, and St. Udo Brand
shall have it all."

She rattled on thus like a happy child. Her stern will was melted to
tenderness, her timid nature was forgotten in joyful excitement. Had he
been the chosen of her heart she could not have welcomed him with wilder
rapture than this.

"By the lord Harry! you have a magnanimous soul," exclaimed Dr. Gay,
delighted as he watched her. "Who would have expected this happy
deliverance out of all our troubles? He can't help loving her in spite
of himself," thought the sanguine Gay; "she's so gracious and upright.
She will win his heart, I could bet ten pounds, in a week."

"Now I can hear how this wonderful miracle came to pass," said she,
composing herself presently; "how did he escape, and how was it that the
rumor of his death got abroad?"

"It seems that it was all a mistake about his being engaged in the
general engagement on the first of September. He was traveling on a
secret embassy from Washington to Virginia, and was set upon by a strong
force at midnight. His guard was composed of but twenty men, and they
were killed to a man. The colonel was left for dead on the field. In the
morning the Southern soldiers came back to strip the dead, and finding
some life in this fellow they carried him to Richmond, where his wounds
were looked to, and he recovered. He has lain in prison ever since, and
was only exchanged three weeks ago; and being disgusted with his
adventures, he has come home again to try his luck here."

Margaret could only clasp her hands again and raise her thankful eyes to
heaven, while a sweet smile quivered on her lips.

"How does he look?" whispered she, at last; "is he not very weak and
ill?"

"Y--es," hesitated Dr. Gay; "he's almost as lank as a grayhound, I must
confess, and tolerably bronzed. But he is a fine looking man for all
that, Miss Margaret, and you must let old sores drop and be kind to
him."

"I will be just to him," said she gleefully.

"Not too generous though, my dear," said Gay, anxiously. "However,
Davenport will take care of that. He has your interest very much at
heart, although he is so rough-and-tumble in his manners."

She turned away her calm, happy face. His warnings fell on deaf ears,
for, as ever, she had chosen her own path and would not depart from it.

"Now," said Gay, "perhaps we had best get through with this affair at
once; you have borne it thus far with far more fortitude than I had
expected. Will you see the colonel to-night?"

She started, and flashed a quick look in his face.

"Is he here, Dr. Gay?" breathed she, with emotion.

"He came in with me," said the doctor; "He asked for you, and is waiting
in the drawing-room."

The thin face of Margaret flushed hotly. One cannot doubt that a flicker
of memory's lamp shone out in that moment, revealing the bitter past to
her shrinking soul, but she dropped the curtain over that picture
quickly, and bade the doctor bring him in.

So Dr. Gay went out with a satisfied smile, and brought the soldier in.

She rose to greet him, tall, majestic as a daughter of the gods, with
her scarlet shawl draping her shoulders regally; and her quivering,
spirited countenance seemed to glow with a new and beautiful effulgence,
as if the glad soul illuminated each plain feature with rose lights. Her
dark-fringed eyelids hid the beaming eyes for a moment of timid
hesitancy, and she drooped before the stranger like a conquered empress;
and then she flashed a full, sweet face upon him whom she had mourned as
dead.

And the gaze grew fixed and troubled, the outstretched hand fell slowly
to her side--she stood speechless. How often had her faithful memory
held up to her the portrait of St. Udo Brand--grand, bold, fearless as
she had beheld him in that hour of his fury; when the white lights of
scorn were flashing from his straightly-leveled eyes, and the wrath of a
king sat on his regal brow.

How was it that he cringed in the doorway there and with a forced stare
met her gaze of bewilderment? Why did his lurid eyeballs shift and
shrink, and grow small and hare-like, when they had ever met hers, with
the full glare of an eagle? How had these thin lines of patient waiting,
and anxiety, and craft, escaped her intent scrutiny when last she had
lifted her outraged eyes to that face.

Was this the hero of her dreams, this evil-faced man who looked at her
so insolently?

The roses faded out of her cheeks, the rich light fled from her eyes,
her heart swelled wildly in her bosom and then turned to a heavier
weight than lead.

She averted a white, cold face from Colonel Brand and sank upon her
chair like one whose blood has oozed to the last drop through the secret
wound.

"Good heaven! she has fainted!" cried Dr. Gay.




CHAPTER XIII.

MARGARET GOES TO CASTLE BRAND.


It was about noon the next morning when, for the second time, Colonel
Brand presented himself at Dr. Gay's door, requesting the honor of an
interview with Margaret Walsingham.

"Shall you see him to-day?" asked the languid voice of Mrs. Gay, at the
lady's bedroom door, when she had delivered the colonel's message.

Margaret opened the door and looked out. Her great troubled eyes were
circled with violet shadows; she had not slept, and, if those wan cheeks
did not belie her she had wept many hours of the preceeding night.

"I must meet him, I suppose; I may as well have it over to-day. I want
to get rid of the whole business as fast as I can."

Colonel Brand rose as the tall, proud figure glided in, and with a quiet
bow passed to a distant sofa.

"We meet, I hope, more amicably than we parted," observed he, with an
intent watch on her countenance.

"On my part, yes," answered she, with a deep blush.

"I have heard how you refused to possess my fortune, feeling how you
would defraud me," said he. "I feel, of course, grateful to you for your
honorable conduct."

The measured tones fell harshly on the woman's high soul; she shrank
from the ignoble praise,

"Sir, I could not honestly take what was by right yours," she said,
looking proudly at the man, "I never meant to defraud you, or to stand
in your way. I only wish to get out of your way, now that you have
returned safely home. I am glad that you have come back, Colonel Brand,
for I regretted your death most bitterly."

Tears came to her eyes, and through them the thin visage of the soldier
seemed to narrow into a travesty of his old self, and she dashed them
away, ashamed of her weakness.

"I thank you for the kindness," said the soft, wary voice. "I did not
believe I had one friend in England who would mourn my death; perhaps,
had I known this, I should never have left it."

She glanced incredulously at him. How could he stoop to such
insincerity, who used to glory in his haughty plain speaking?

The words of kindness died upon her lips, and she turned away with a
heart-sick sigh.

"I see that I can hardly get Miss Walsingham to believe that I am not
the brutal scoffer who insulted her at Castle Brand, seven months ago,"
said he, with an ingratiating gentleness; "but I for one have lived to
see my mistake, and perhaps you may soon see yours. I have come back in
many respects a changed man."

"Changed?" faltered she, raising her wistful eyes to his. "Yes, you are.
I should not have known you."

And the shifting, contracting eyeballs answered her by dropping to the
carpet, while the olive face whitened to a deathly pallor, and the thin,
secret lips twitched suddenly.

Changed? Oh, Heaven! yes; had she been blind to read such nobility in
yon ill-favored face?

Changed? By all that was generous, brave, and true, this Colonel Brand
had belied her mad belief; no foolish devotee had ever bowed before a
more unworthy shrine than had poor Margaret Walsingham.

"One summer in the South, under such disagreeable circumstances, would
alter any man's appearance," quoth he, twisting his black mustache with
his long, brown fingers, and furtively reading her disdainful face.
"What between exposure, wounds, swamp fever, famine, and imprisonment,
personal beauty stands but a poor chance at the seat of war. But I hope
that what I have lost in personal appearance I have gained in the
qualities which a good woman admires most. I believe my heart is
bettered, my dear Miss Walsingham."

Hypocrite!

She vowed that she would rather hear that insolent laugh and the brutal
exclamation:

"Ye gods! what a Medusa!" than this silly sentimentality from St. Udo
Brand.

It was not like him to crouch at her feet, the hero whom she had
forgiven long ago for his roughness, exalting that roughness to the
pedestal of just contempt for a successful adventuress.

Why could he not, out of that nobility of heart which she had credited
him with, see that she had forgotten the old grudge long ago, and that
she was ready to do him full justice?

What did he take her for? a dissembling schemer, who had not been
sincere in her rejection of the Brand estate, and whom he must fawn upon
in order to win his own from her greedy clutch?

"I have nothing to do with your reformation, Colonel Brand," she said,
with cold formality. "My duty is plain to me, whatever you are. I shall
require no prompting to do it."

His eyes sparkled.

For the first time he looked frankly at her, and seemed at ease.

"I am relieved to hear you say so, Miss Walsingham," he said, with
something of the old free air; "for I was not inclined to quarrel with
you about my grandmother's disposition of the property. I should be
sorry to return to the angry feelings which I at first was fool enough
to indulge in against you; for I must admit that I am very much more
agreeably impressed with you to-day than I was that morning in the
library in Castle Brand. So, suppose we let by-gones drop, and begin on
a friendly footing."

"I repeat that your changed feelings have nothing to do with my duty,"
said Margaret, coldly. "It can make no difference whether you regard me
with toleration or indifference, I shall do you justice."

He stared suspiciously at her, and one or two wary wrinkles lined his
forehead.

"You don't mean to say that you are going to offer me some paltry
compensation instead of submitting quietly to the terms of the will?"
demanded he.

She turned a look of splendid scorn upon him.

Could he not find it in his soul to conceive of strict justice? Did he
not know the meaning of generosity? How mean, then, was his heart, which
ascribed such abject meanness to her?

"No; I did not think of that," said she. "You shall have every shilling
of your property, Colonel Brand."

"By Jove, you amaze me!" cried he, rising to approach near her. "Then
you have decided to marry me, after all, and let us both have the
lands?"

His exultation shone out in his evil countenance, and sent him hastily
across the room to take her hand.

But Margaret shrank back, and with a strong frown waved him away.

What had frozen the generous words on her lips?

Why did she let him rush to every conclusion but the right one?

She had come into his presence to say:

"I freely give up my claim upon your property, and place the deeds
entirely in your hands, wishing no further connection with it, or with
you; and so--farewell!"

But here she sat, chilled, bitter at heart, coolly asking herself:

"Is it well for me to be too hasty? Since I have been so utterly
mistaken in the character of this man, may I not be mistaken in rashly
following out my first impulse regarding his grandmother's property?
Yes, I am rash. I will wait a while before I make my intention known."

"I must know you better, sir, before I can form a just opinion of you,"
said she. "Perhaps we had better defer this matter until we have each
had time to decide upon the wisest course?"

"We have scarcely four months," said he, with a frown.

"They are ample for the purpose," she retorted, and rose to terminate
the interview.

"When am I to see you again, Miss Walsingham?" asked the softly-pitched
tones.

Without analyzing the strong impulse which prompted her, she replied:

"You are welcome to come here every evening, if you choose to make an
associate of your grandmother's companion."

And the satire checked the exaggerated deference with which he was
making his adieus, and sent him away with a touch of St. Udo's lofty
style.

She stood long at the window, following that tall, fine figure with
darkened eyes, and biting her lips fiercely.

"Oh, what a fool I have been," she groaned, when he had disappeared, "to
credit that small, chill heart with noble qualities! To invest that
suspicious soul with high impulses, and then to fall down and worship
him for a fallen god! Does not his quailing eye speak of a vile history,
of which he is such a coward as to fear the exposure? He, the gallant
soldier and invincible hero! Oh, blind world, to wear such a bandage of
credulity! He is incapable of bravery. I protest that a man with such a
downward eye could not look peril in the face. He fears me--_me_,
Margaret Walsingham, who trembled at his voice. How can this paradox be
explained? Is it possible that I have been so insanely mistaken in the
man as this?"

Colonel Brand forthwith began to visit Margaret Walsingham, with a view
to winning her for his wife, and at every interview her aversion
increased.

She soon came to shudder if she but heard his voice, and in her heart
violently contradicted every word he uttered, as if she saw the lie on
his face, when she detected his petty subterfuges to trap her interest,
and wily schemes to catch her love as regularly as he had recourse to
them. And she knew in her soul that the man was false in all except his
intention to win back his fortune.

"Where is that St. Udo Brand I mourned for?" wailed she, one evening,
after a stormy interview, when he had unwittingly disclosed the foul
distortion of his soul to her abhorring eyes. "Where has that great
spirit fled which cried for help to save itself from ruin at the hands
of Juliana Ducie? Must I accept the detestable truth that the gold which
I thought I had discovered behind the vail of sin was but tinsel all the
time, and tarnished with many an indelible stain of crime? Oh, St. Udo,
come back to me as you used to come in my grief, and reveal your sad,
heroic history once more, that I may believe in human nature again! But
for that secret, wily nature, I loathe it--oh, I loathe _that man_!" she
hissed, passionately. "Something rises up in my heart against him every
hour I see him, and whispers: 'Crush that serpent!'"

"How could he have concealed his real nature from everybody so
successfully? This wretch is not clever enough to conceal his nature
from me, and I am not particularly penetrating. _Can this be St. Udo
Brand? Good Heaven! What an idea!_"

Margaret suddenly relapsed into utter silence; the half-whispered
thoughts died on her lips, and she grew fearfully pale. The idea had
shot through her brain like a blinding flash of light; it dazzled, it
distracted her. She struggled against the fast-growing conviction as the
unconscious wretch from his half-fatal bath in the ocean struggles
against returning life, preferring the stupor to the throes of the new
life.

But it grew to her; she could not shake it off. She wondered, aghast at
herself for wondering, why she had not known it in the first stunned,
incredulous gaze, when all her joy at his return froze into cold
repulsion, and she recognized a worm instead of St. Udo, the hero.

Then she fell into a dreadful state of excitement; she paced her room
for hours, clasping her hands frantically, as if she felt her need of a
tight hold on some human being, and had no friend but herself; and every
dread possibility sailed slowly and with ruthless pertinacity before her
shrinking eye. She never had passed such a forlorn night yet.

When her strength gave out she lay on her bed, with her sleepless gaze
fastened upon the wintry sky, and thought out the ugly problem, with the
winking stars for counselors.

"That man has come here, determined to marry me for the sake of the
fortune I hold; and he has every hope that I will consent. He has traded
upon his _extraordinary resemblance to St. Udo Brand_, and, trusting to
our slight knowledge of St. Udo Brand, expects to pass without
difficulty for him.

"So St. Udo Brand _is_ dead, after all. Brave heart, forgive me for the
wrong I did you in believing this reptile to be you. Now, am I to suffer
an impostor to personate Colonel Brand, because I am a woman and feel a
natural terror of the villain? No, I swear that I will not suffer the
imposture. If all the world should believe in this man's identity with
Colonel Brand if I did not believe it, I would try to prove his
falseness. Mrs. Brand left her fortune to me, because she trusted to my
honor that I would do my best to save her grandson from destruction
through its agency; and, since he has perished, I will not permit any
other to get it upon false pretenses. Why should I? It would be wrong
for this man to get it, and, if he were my own brother, I would not give
it to him when it was wrong; how much less would I relinquish it at the
snarling of this hound? You wretch! I would far rather crush you than
enrich you," she hissed through her set teeth, while her eyes gleamed
like the stars she was gazing at.

"Thus far my mind is made up, that I will withstand the man who _calls
himself_ Colonel Brand. But how am I to do it? I will take possession of
Castle Brand at once, that he may not get it before me. I will hold it
against all his machinations. And when I am settled there I will try my
best to unmask him, and ruin his infamous scheme. I need hope for no
assistance from Mr. Davenport or Dr. Gay; as usual, they will call me
half mad and disregar

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