The way in which Lady Caroline had ferreted out the secret remained a mystery to the Brands. But they never gave her half enough credit for her remarkable cleverness. When she saw Wyvis Brand, she had been struck almost at once by his likeness to John Wyvis, the man who married her old favorite, Mary. She leaped quickly to the conviction that he was not Mark Brand's son. And when Margaret's infatuation for him declared itself, she went straight to her husband's man of business, and commissioned him to find out all that could be found out about the Brands during the period of their early married life in Italy. The task was surprisingly easy. Mark Brand had taken few precautions, for he had drifted rather than deliberately steered towards the substitution of Wyvis for his own eldest son. A very few inquiries elicited all that Lady Caroline wanted to know. But she had not been quite sure of her facts when she entered the Red House, and, if Mrs. Brand had been a little cooler and a little braver, she might have defeated her enemy's ends, and carried her secret inviolate to her grave. But courage and coolness were the last things that could be expected from Mrs. Brand. She had never possessed a strong mind and the various chances and changes of her life had enfeebled instead of strengthening it. Mark Brand had proved by no means a loving or faithful husband, and did not scruple to taunt her with her inferiority of position, and to threaten that he would mortify Wyvis' pride some day by a revelation of his true name and descent. He was too fond of Wyvis to carry his threat into effect but he made the poor woman, his wife, suffer an infinity of torture, the greater part of which might have been avoided if she had chanced to be gifted with a higher spirit and a firmer will. Wyvis Brand went immediately to London after the interview with his lawyer in Beaminster, and from London, in a few days, he wrote to Cuthbert. The letter was curt, but not unfriendly. He wished, he said, to repair the injustice that had been done, and to restore to Cuthbert the inheritance that was his by right. He had already instructed his lawyers to take the necessary steps, and he was glad to think that Cuthbert and Nora would now be able to make the Red House what it ought to be. He hoped that they would be very happy. For himself, he thought of immigrating: he was heartily sick of modern civilization, and believed that he would more easily find friends and fellow-workers amongst the Red Skins of the Choctaw Indians than in "County" drawing-rooms. And only by this touch did Wyvis betray the bitterness that filled his heart. Cuthbert rushed up to town at once in a white heat of indignation. He was only just in time to find Wyvis at his hotel, for he had taken his passage to America, and was going to start almost immediately. But there was time at least for a very energetic discussion between the two young men.