"No, indeed, sir; I hope you'll believe me, sir. I just had but hung it up when I was sent with a lamp to the upper hall. Please ask Miss Walsingham if it wasn't so, yer honor." "Then, by Heaven! I've been robbed!" He turned on his heel, and carried his livid face into the library, as spotted as if he had been smitten with a white plague, rummaged without ceremony until he had got himself pen, and ink, and paper, and wrote a _billet-doux_ to his lady-love. Five minutes after Margaret's whirlwind rush to her room, there came a knocking at the door. "Who is it?" "It's me. Miss Margaret, dear." "Oh, Mrs. Chetwode! what is it." "A letter from the colonel, Miss Margaret." "Push it under the door." "Dear me, it won't go." "Make it go." Presently a slip of white appeared, caught on the edge of the carpet. She seized and pulled it through. It had got rid of its envelope in the rough transit, and came followed by fluttering rags, held together by a great wax seal, like a scarlet beacon of danger. Still kneeling, she read it, fiercely bit her lip, and pondered. "I give five minutes to retract your mistake. A few pencil-scrawls are not worth a life. Only five minutes, my dear Miss Walsingham." "If I yielded, would I be safer than if I was obstinate?" she thought, crushing the scraps in her hand. "No, what are _his_ assurances? Lies to lull me to sleep. Let me drive my foe to open enmity--let me goad him to his ruin, or mine, if God so forgets me, but I will never give up this evidence of his guilt." She held aloft, with wild triumph, the green note-book. "Do your worst to Margaret Walsingham, you monster, but you will not get St. Udo's right out of her faithful hands. My five minutes of grace are slipping away, and I am going to defy him. I will pray Heaven to protect me, and--I will do my duty." 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.