"But, my dear girl, St. Udo is not dead!" said Dr. Gay, imploringly.
"Good gracious, what do you mean?" sputtered the lawyer. "You may take the property by refusing to marry the colonel, or you may keep the property by quarreling with him and making him glad to leave you, but you can't take the property on the plea of his death, when he is by your own showing sitting in Castle Brand at this moment."
"That brings me to my accusation," cried Margaret, almost wildly; "I have convinced myself that the person who has come here in the semblance of St. Udo Brand, to woo me, and to be in time the master of Seven-Oak Waaste, is a villain who has weighed well the risks he runs, is, in short, an impostor!"
"Good Heavens!" gasped the physician.
"Your proofs, madam," demanded the lawyer, with another, and a larger pinch of snuff.
CHAPTER XV.
A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
"My proofs are these," answered Margaret, forcing herself to speak quietly. "He acts exactly as a man would act who was personating some one else. He knows the true St. Udo's history to a certain extent, and cleverly acts upon it; but go beyond the part he has rehearsed, and he betrays the most extraordinary confusion. When first I saw him I was astonished at the change which a few months in America had made. The longer I studied him the more palpable became his disguise to my eyes; and I am now morally convinced that my suspicions are well founded."
"All this is nothing," said Mr. Davenport. "You have advanced no proofs, except to show that from the first day of his return you conceived a dislike to him."