She looked at her watch. It was six o'clock. She had been nearly two hours in the lawyer's office.
He had long ago lit the gas and closed the shutters, and was waiting very patiently for her to conclude her business that he might go home to his dinner.
"I have one more letter to write, Mr. Emersham. Will you wait a few minutes longer?" said Margaret.
Again he poured out the assurance of the honor, etc.; and, with a wild smile on her lips, she wrote the following daring words:
"Roland Mortlake, or Thoms—which name you have least right to I cannot tell—I warn you, that if I meet my death while absent from Regis upon this journey, your doom is sealed!
"I warn you further, that if I return safely at the end of the time I have set, your doom is sealed, if you are here to brave it. Your only safety lies in flight before I return; and even then I shall do my best to convict you of the murder of St. Udo Brand, which you have confessed in your pocket-book, which has this day been placed in safe hands—which will break the seals, if I am not alive to break them when I intend to return to Regis. If I perish, vengeance shall surely overtake the murderer of St. Udo Brand and Margaret Walsingham."
She bade farewell to Mr. Emersham at last, and entering her carriage, drove straight to a hotel near the railway station, from which she sent Symonds home with the carriage, and intrusted her letter to him with directions to give it to the steward to deliver to the colonel; and warnings to Symonds not to allow himself to be questioned by Colonel Brand.
A note to Mr. Purcell conveyed her command that he would attend upon her journey; and cautioned him against giving Colonel Brand an inkling of his intentions.
In a quarter of an hour the steward of Castle Brand was ushered into her presence.
"All ready, Purcell?" demanded the lady.
"Quite ready, Miss Margaret."