Not a word was spoken during the short drive. The chill winds met them at every turn, whirling the dun crisp leaves high overhead, and stinging the pale woman with their icy breath; but she did not seem to heed either the bitter wind or Dr. Gay's bitter silence, but sat tranced in her own mysterious thoughts, which she never asked the angry little man to share. Once only she roused herself; it was when they were passing through the lodge-gates, when, for the first time, a fine view of the grand old castle opened before them. She bent forward, and regarded the hoary pile from turreted roof to huge foundation stone, and a flash of scorn and hatred broke from her eyes, and wreathed her lips with the unwonted sneer. "It is something to plot for, I suppose," she murmured to herself. "It has its fascination for such a cur." "Beg pardon, Miss Walsingham, did you speak?" asked the doctor, sulkily. "Yes, my friend; I was assuring myself that yonder fine building was enough to rouse the envy of a covetous nature," she returned. "But we shan't permit any foul play, shall we?" She looked up with a strange smile; it was cruel and derisive, and the little doctor subsided into uneasy silence, and stared hard at her all the rest of the way. When they came to the door, Mr. Purcell, the steward, and Mrs. Chetwode, the housekeeper, bustled out to welcome the heiress home, and conducted her in with the greatest deference. She turned on the threshold and looked down at the doctor, who was sullenly mounting his gig again. "Tell Colonel Brand that his next visit to me must take place in my castle," she said; "and that I hope to meet him suitably, and to repay his devotion as it deserves." She vanished within the gloomy portal, and Dr. Gay carried the message to Colonel Brand, who swore a great oath that the girl had both sense and spirit, and, with her castle to boot, would not make a bad speculation. So his next visit was paid at the old castle, and Margaret led him through the length and breadth of it, and sought to trap him into blundering over its various rooms and he answered all her questions correctly, and comported himself with perfection as St. Udo Brand, and left her in the evening, still and moody, thinking out her next secret move to snare him. CHAPTER XIV. WILL HE BETRAY HIMSELF? St. Udo Brand was walking with Margaret over the rustling leaves of the Norman oaks, and beguiling the time by recounting his adventures in the American war. How minutely he described his small part in the great wild drama of carnage! How feelingly he touched on the sorrows of war; how enthusiastically he extolled the valor of his Vermont boys! The whole tissue of events reproduced with such marvelous accuracy, that Margaret was dumb with secret wonder. How could one living being rehearse so faithfully the part of another?