"Good-night, Mr. Wells. Thank you for taking so much trouble this dark night." She stood listening to his retreating footsteps, and fingering the embossed seal of the letter. It seemed to be the Brand coat of arms; and yet who would use this crest when all the Brands were dead but one? A light still burned in the lodge, down by the great gates, and she hung her valise on the iron railing and lifted the latch. "Let me come in a moment?" she asked, putting in her pale, disturbed face. "Lord! is that you, Miss Margaret!" cried the lodge-keeper, pushing his horn glasses upon his forehead to look at her with his watery eyes. "Come in, and welcome." "I was out walking, and met the letter-carrier, he gave me a letter, which I cannot wait longer to read. Let me read it here?" She sat down, with the tallow candle between her and these bleared old eyes, and opened her letter. Yes, it bore the Brand crest with its fierce inscription. There was but one surviving Brand in the world, and his name signed Margaret's letter: "MADAM:--Accept, with my profound congratulations, Ethel Brand's bequest of Seven-Oak Waaste, and all acres attached, and my bequest of your own choice of a master to the place mentioned. I have withstood the exquisite temptation of sharing your bliss, lest I should revive the pretty drama of 'Paolo Osini,' who strangled his wife in his first embrace; and with a pious blessing on the manes of poor Madam Brand, who likely enough got choked by a parasite, I depart to a land where oracles do say there are no fortune-hunters. "Yours, admiringly, "ST. UDO BRAND." With this second bitter insult crushed in her hand, and terrified tears washing her cheeks, Margaret Walsingham went back, in the surging night wind, to Seven-Oak Waaste. CHAPTER III. EVIL FOREBODINGS. Mid-ocean, a steamer was laboring on her way, beneath a sky like glittering pearl, arching over a waste of phosphorescent billows, and with a crispy breeze behind her. The ladies were in their berths, the gentlemen paced the deck, and beguiled the time by discussions many-themed. But St. Udo Brand, with his hands behind him and his back to all, gazed over the sea to the distant horizon line. A grim satisfaction illuminated his eye, though the ever-present sneer still marred his lips, as, deep in unaccustomed reverie, he examined his position on all sides.