"You are in a very charitable humour, Lionel," said Sir Reginald, with a sneer; "but you can afford to be charitable."
Mr. Dale did not reply to this insolent speech.
Sir Reginald Eversleigh and his two cousins left the village of Raynham by the same coach. The evening was finer than the day had been, and a full moon steeped the landscape in her soft light, as the travellers looked their last on the grand old castle.
The baronet contemplated the scene with unmitigated rage.
"Hers!" he muttered; "hers! to have and hold so long as she lives! A nameless woman has tricked me out of the inheritance which should have been mine. But let her beware! Despair is bold, and I may yet discover some mode of vengeance."
While the departing traveller mused thus, a pale woman stood at one of the windows of Raynham Castle, looking out upon the woods, over which the moon sailed in all her glory.
"Mine!" she said to herself; "those lands and woods belong to me!—to me, who have stood face to face with starvation!—to me, who have considered it a privilege to sleep in an empty barn! They are mine; but the possession of them brings no pleasure. My life has been blighted by a wrong so cruel, that wealth and position are worthless in my eyes."
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