"But about this letter," said Colonel Brand, coming again out of his fog, and smoothing the ugly seams out of his face. "I do not feel inclined to leave the subject until I have set myself in at least a more tolerable light before your eyes."
He pulled his handkerchief with a flourish out of his pocket, to flick a cobweb off Margaret's sleeve, which she had brushed from a bush twenty minutes since, and as he did so, a small note-book fell to the ground.
Why had he not brushed the cobweb off before?
"I am sure that you will acknowledge that under the circumstances,"—here he stopped to pick up the note-book—"disappointment might drive me to say anything,"—he idly leafed over the book as if searching for something—"and I was really so astonished at my grandmother's will that surprise seemed to take away my senses. The idea of insinuating that you had stepped in fraudulently, and been the parasite which chocked her! And that allusion to Paolo Orsini strangling his wife—upon my honor as a gentleman, I humbly beg your pardon! Ah, that is what I was looking for, the autograph of General McClellan. Can you read characters by writing, or do you care to examine it, Miss Walsingham?"
She took the book from him at arm's length, and looked silently at the name.
"The General wrote that in my memorandum-book as a password on one occasion when I was on a secret embassy. The rough scrawl has often saved my life since."
Margaret shut the memorandum-book, looked carefully at each cover, and handed it back.
"Trap the first has failed!" she thought. "He is too clever for me. But, you wretch, I am not daunted yet. A green morocco cover with silver clasps, and the Brand crest in gilt. Yes I shall know it again, and some time I shall find out why you dropped it among the withered leaves, if woman's wit can match man's cunning."
"I can read characters very well sometimes," she replied to the watchful colonels last remark, "but not by their writing."
They were nearing the house, and Margaret turned aside from the main entrance to a glass door in the next wing.