"Most startling!" said the physician, in a quiet tone, as if it was really not startling at all.
"What have you to say of it?" she demanded of the lawyer, with an anxious look at his impenetrable countenance.
"Consider the absurdity of your suspicions," broke in Davenport, "the childishness and impossibility of your premises. How could an imposter act out St. Udo Brand's history? How could he know Colonel Brand's most private affairs, and his friends, and write with his hand, and have the same appearance, and cheat everybody—we among the rest, who saw him when he was a boy as often as I have fingers and toes? Oh, Miss Walsingham!"
"You wish me to marry Mortlake, do you?" she asked, with scorn.
"For Heaven's sake don't call him that!" ejaculated Davenport. "If you call him that and he hears it, the Brand spirit will be very quiet for the first time if he doesn't end the slander in murder."
"It began in murder," retorted she, "that would be the fittest end, after all. But do not fear; I shall not alarm your colonel without proper cause. You really expect me to treat him as if he was St. Udo Brand?"
"Yes, until you have proofs to the contrary."
She sat with folded hands and pondered. An ashy pallor overspread her face. A mental gag was forced between her teeth; a mental rope was placed for her across a yawning chasm, and selfish hands were pushing her toward it, and selfish voices were urging her to cross alone.
"Very well," she breathed firmly, "I will bring you proofs that you will not venture to discredit. When I send for you again, come as promptly as you did to-day."
The executors were forced to depart with this arrangement, and rode back to Regis deep in discussion relating to their ward's sanity.