"He is cleverer than I am," she assured herself, "and he will most likely win the contest. He has come out of a past which I shall never be able to trace to personate St. Udo Brand, and his resemblance is the weakest instrument he uses. He has appeared like a horrible phantom in St. Udo's guise, and he defies me to tear his mask from him. He is no mere adventurer who has traded upon an accidental likeness to Colonel Brand and stepped into his shoes upon the day of his death—he is a deliberate scoundrel who probably was arranging his plot upon the night on which he came from Regis with Captain Brand's letter. He has waited for St. Udo's death to step into his place and enact his life from the point where he laid it down on the battle-field. Has he anything to do with the sudden end of that life? Has he murdered St. Udo Brand? Great Heaven! am I to unvail an impostor and find an assassin in this man?"
She clenched her hands, and faithful memory brought back the vision of the dying hero, upon his pulseless horse, and she heeded it now, though she had sternly repressed all belief of it before.
"Is Mortlake the crawling demon who crouched over the brave colonel in the dark and stabbed him? Have I met him first upon the steps of Castle Brand—second in my vision of St. Udo's death, and last in my treacherous lover of to-night? Oh, my heart! is St. Udo really dead then, and by his hand! The grand lion-hearted king, by the hand of a fawning slave?"
Wild with horror, she shuddered at the dark chasm she beheld yawning in her way, but not for a moment did she shrink from the tortuous path which led to that abyss—the path of inexorable pursuit which ended not until the man was hunted down and unmasked.
She waited until she was calm, and then she wrote her letter to the two executors, which was to expose the man who stood in St. Udo's position, well knowing the dangers of the path she had chosen, and accepting her chances without fear:
"Castle Brand.
"Dear Sirs: This is the second appeal I make to you on behalf of the true disposition of Mrs. Brand's property. If this appeal is unheeded, I will take the case in my own hands, and pursue it to the end, whatever that end may be; and if I die before I succeed, God will hold you responsible for my death.
"The man who calls himself Colonel St. Udo Brand came here to-night according to appointment, and took the first step against me, and for the possession of Seven-Oak Waaste, by proposing for my hand.
"Believing him to be an imposter, I declined giving him a decided answer, and bade him wait for one month. In other words (and he perfectly understood it), I demanded a month in which to discover the proofs of his villany.
"He accepted my fiat, but with great reluctance because he felt his position so unsafe, before my marriage or death, that he feared thirty day's delay might ruin it.
"At the moment of our parting, a sudden rush of memory revealed to me the true personality of the pseudo Colonel Brand.
"I beg of you to weigh this communication well, and not to put it down as you have put down my convictions before.
"On the night of Madam Brand's death, you remember that Captain Brand, in his fatal carelessness, came as far as Regis to see his grandmother, and staid there, sending a note of excuse to me by a messenger. This messenger gave his name as Roland Mortlake, and stood waiting at the foot of the steps while I read the note.
"Mark me here! This man was so like the Brand's, that Purcell, the steward, advanced to meet him, saying:
"'Welcome to the castle, captain!'
"He explained that he was not the captain, but the captain's messenger, and he stood by all the time I was communicating the contents of the letter to Purcell. He was so close to us, that he must have heard all that passed. Under this belief, I turned suddenly to him and told him to go instantly for Captain Brand, and to tell him that the will must be changed, or he would be ruined.
"His crafty, eager look so arrested me, that I gazed fixedly in his face for some minutes; and it seemed to me that I discovered a crime-stained and guileful soul in his eyes for they haunted me long afterward.
"And I distinctly remember the words of the man who had accompanied him, as he rode away under the trees:
"'Gardez-tu, my friend! You English take great news sourly. Ma foi! you curse Mademoiselle Fortune herself when she smiles upon you the blandest!'
"I heeded these words not all then. I recalled them one by one to-night from the hidden chamber of memory, and I protest that they hold their own significance in that daring plot.
"Do you read nothing in this reminiscence beyond a woman's idle vagaries of fancy?
"Will you believe it—only, that when I swear that the man, Roland Mortlake, who stood on the castle-steps with me that night, and the man, St. Udo Brand, who stood with me on the castle-steps to-night, are one?
"I call upon you, in the interests of justice, to find the proofs of this infamous imposture.
"I appeal to you, that you may do your duty by the dead and unveil a monster of crime. What has Mortlake done with St. Udo Brand?
"Perhaps he has murdered him. Will you let a possible murderer escape you because a woman points him out? How do we know that the news of his being killed in battle was not true? And, being true, how do we know that Mortlake's hand was not the hand that destroyed the heir of Castle Brand?
"How do we know that this plot, if sifted well, would not reveal in the suitor you sent me to-night a red-handed assassin?
"Come to me in the morning and tell me what you are going to do. If you are going to do nothing, then I will carry on the contest alone, and trace the history of Roland Mortlake from the bottom step of Castle Brand, where I saw him first, pace by pace, to the foot of the gallows, where I shall see him last.
"Yours Respectfully,
"Margaret Walsingham.
"To Messrs Davenport & Gay."
Late as it was she rang for the housekeeper, and gave orders that her letter should be conveyed to the lawyer's house that night.
"Tell Symonds to give it to Mr. Davenport himself, and to trust it to no one else," she said.
The housekeeper met the feverish flash of her young mistress' eyes, and took the envelope from her hand with much uneasiness.
"My poor dear, you ar'nt strong enough for all this worrying and wearing," she observed, sympathetically. "I wish for your sake, deary, the colonel had lain quiet in his grave."