Margaret suddenly relapsed into utter silence; the half-whispered thoughts died on her lips, and she grew fearfully pale. The idea had shot through her brain like a blinding flash of light; it dazzled, it distracted her. She struggled against the fast-growing conviction as the unconscious wretch from his half-fatal bath in the ocean struggles against returning life, preferring the stupor to the throes of the new life. But it grew to her; she could not shake it off. She wondered, aghast at herself for wondering, why she had not known it in the first stunned, incredulous gaze, when all her joy at his return froze into cold repulsion, and she recognized a worm instead of St. Udo, the hero. Then she fell into a dreadful state of excitement; she paced her room for hours, clasping her hands frantically, as if she felt her need of a tight hold on some human being, and had no friend but herself; and every dread possibility sailed slowly and with ruthless pertinacity before her shrinking eye. She never had passed such a forlorn night yet. When her strength gave out she lay on her bed, with her sleepless gaze fastened upon the wintry sky, and thought out the ugly problem, with the winking stars for counselors. "That man has come here, determined to marry me for the sake of the fortune I hold; and he has every hope that I will consent. He has traded upon his _extraordinary resemblance to St. Udo Brand_, and, trusting to our slight knowledge of St. Udo Brand, expects to pass without difficulty for him. "So St. Udo Brand _is_ dead, after all. Brave heart, forgive me for the wrong I did you in believing this reptile to be you. Now, am I to suffer an impostor to personate Colonel Brand, because I am a woman and feel a natural terror of the villain? No, I swear that I will not suffer the imposture. If all the world should believe in this man's identity with Colonel Brand if I did not believe it, I would try to prove his falseness. Mrs. Brand left her fortune to me, because she trusted to my honor that I would do my best to save her grandson from destruction through its agency; and, since he has perished, I will not permit any other to get it upon false pretenses. Why should I? It would be wrong for this man to get it, and, if he were my own brother, I would not give it to him when it was wrong; how much less would I relinquish it at the snarling of this hound? You wretch! I would far rather crush you than enrich you," she hissed through her set teeth, while her eyes gleamed like the stars she was gazing at.