"No, no!" exclaimed Margaret, with a shudder. "How could you, when St. Udo was not really slain by him?"
"Nothing easier," replied the young man, with a dull shrug. "We know not this thing that Colonel Brand is alive until the murderer is no more, and then we discover our mistake and the heir of Castle Brand at one and the same time. Eh, mademoiselle?"
"Would you cause an innocent man to lose his life?"
"Innocent—pouf! So is the weasel of rats! His intention was not innocent, m'amie, and it is too well for him that he should have the return trip to Tasmania for nothing, and make some chain-gang miserable for life. Bah! you Thoms, why did I not kick you oftener? Mon Dieu! how blind we are."
"I scarcely suppose you are really in earnest with such a proposition," said Margaret, fixing her clear eyes incredulously upon him, "so I shall proceed with my plans. I hope you will not object to my letting this strange communication which you have made be fully known to the executors, and putting myself wholly under their protection through all my movements? My life has been so cruelly attempted, that, though I have no misgivings with regard to you"—she smiled kindly upon her good fairy—"I have been taught too severe a lesson to desire acting without the express protection of my guardians, Mr. Davenport and Dr. Gay."
"Confide everything to your guardians, mademoiselle," rejoined the chevalier, with a flourish of his hands outward, as if he was bailing his heart dry, "and have them both with you if you wish—only do not exclude me from the dear privilege of standing beside to see the hand-grip of reconciliation, and to bless at the proper moment, and to be the good sorcier."
"You shall accompany me," said Margaret, with bright tears in her eyes, "and perhaps you shall see the reconciliation."
"By gar! you are von angel. Now, my satisfaction would be superb if you would but wait until that leetle game was played out with Monsieur Handcuff, and that I should stand by him at the proper moment to see the noose grip, and the drop, and the juggling trick which turns a villain into a human tassel. Hah!"—rubbing his hand with relish—"I think I see him, the dog!"
"You will go to Mr. Seamore Emersham, who is counsel for the prosecution against Mortlake and tell him, first, that the man has been arrested as a runaway convict; second that his attempt to murder Colonel Brand has proved a failure, and that Colonel Brand is now at New York. Then invite him up to the castle this evening, where you and he will meet the executors, and a consultation can be held upon the subject."
The chevalier seeing that the young lady was quite deaf to his rather swindling plan of vengeance on Mortlake, smothered his inclinations as if they had been expressed in joke, and agreed to her arrangements; and after a very cordial interview they parted.