She bowed her head on her hands, and, as second by second slipped by, her thoughts went up to Heaven and to God, and, with the love of a servant tried and true, to Ethel Brand.
"Mrs. Chetwode?"
"I am waiting here, miss, for the answer."
"Tell Colonel Brand that the five minutes are past, and I defy him."
"Oh, Miss Margaret, dearie, them same words?"
"Exactly. Change nothing."
The housekeeper went with lagging feet and this message to the snarling hound in the library, who cursed her heartily and shut the door in her face.
Margaret remained with her head sunk on her knees in that sort of trance with which the wretch awaits the too sure sentence of death. It came; a dull tremor through the massive walls—the great door was shut—Colonel Brand had left the house.
Now she knew that she was sentenced to death; no remedy—no drawing back.
A cold ooze broke over her; her natural womanly fears became rampant; her fancy pictured the form of murder which the crawling wretch she had to deal with would most surely employ. At once the dull waves of the pool where she had encountered the sleuth-hound and his monster occurred to her; its cold chill waters enveloped her heart; the weeds and mud chocked her even more than the fancied hand at her throat; that gleaming stiletto seemed driven into her bosom; for a time she lived through the agonies of actual death.