"Trap the second successful."
"Now," she said, turning within the room, and looking down on him with her pallid and scornful face, "I have a fancy to know how far this aberration of mind exists with you. Will you permit me to amuse myself with an experiment? Will you let me stand here while you stand without, and describe to me the scene which passed upon the occasion of our first meeting in this room?"
She put a hand upon each leaf of the door, and formed of herself a barrier; as if her woman's strength could shut him out of Castle Brand, and her gray eyes glowed with a new and fierce emotion which her simple heart had never known of before this man came home to his own.
"Madam," said the colonel, gnawing the head of his cane, like a dog at the end of his chain, "It is not all astonishing that I should have forgotten the peculiarities of an old glass door, even though I often used it in my boyhood; other and graver memories might easily displace such trivialities and I never professed to cherish the old associations of Castle Brand with much reverence. But the scene of our first meeting can never escape my recollection. It is cruel of you to recall the most abject moment of my life, but since you insist upon it, I cannot choose but obey.
"You came out of the shadow of St. George, after the reading of the will by Davenport, and at the polite little doctor's introduction, I was ungallant enough to indulge in unseemly laughter, and to exclaim: 'Ye Gods! What a Medusa!' at which—shall I ever forget your superb indignation!—you gathered your skirts and swept like a queen from the room. My dear madam, do I describe the scene accurately? It is not every woman who would have had the nerve to call up such a scene as that from the vast depths of memory; I must perforce admire your courage and—shall I say? your incredulity!"
He bowed sardonically. The ugly seams, so suggestive of crime and cunning, had come back upon his brow, and he doffed his hat; the twitching face bore a smile of triumph, which revealed how sure he felt of victory.
"Trap the third has signally failed," thought Margaret; "this part at least of St. Udo's history has been well studied. Ah, he will be too clever for me!"
She dropped her hands from the leaves of the door and stood aside, while a slight increase of palor stole up to her face.
"You have satisfied me, Colonel Brand. Come in if you please."
He silently entered, and with one accord, these two people, who were tacitly drawing together their forces for a deadly conflict, turned and eyed each other; she with stern-unflinching defiance; he with a quailing, yet impudent look of confident success.