"It began in murder," retorted she, "that would be the fittest end, after all. But do not fear; I shall not alarm your colonel without proper cause. You really expect me to treat him as if he was St. Udo Brand?" "Yes, until you have proofs to the contrary." She sat with folded hands and pondered. An ashy pallor overspread her face. A mental gag was forced between her teeth; a mental rope was placed for her across a yawning chasm, and selfish hands were pushing her toward it, and selfish voices were urging her to cross alone. "Very well," she breathed firmly, "I will bring you proofs that you will not venture to discredit. When I send for you again, come as promptly as you did to-day." The executors were forced to depart with this arrangement, and rode back to Regis deep in discussion relating to their ward's sanity. How long Margaret sat alone in the library she could not tell--an ominous foretaste of the grim future had shrouded her soul, and the dark hours passed unheeded by. When she roused herself, it was to instant action. She sat down before her desk and began to write a letter--her third appeal for help. She wrote but one passionate sentence, then her head sank between her hands. "Who knows whether I shall live until it could be answered?" she moaned. Bethinking herself, she tore the sheet and cast it into the heart of the fire, and took a new sheet; dashed off again but one sentence, signed her name, thrust it into an envelope, hurriedly sealing it, as if she feared her mind might change at any moment. It was a telegram and ran thus: "LADY JULIANA DUCIE:--Come at once to Castle Brand on a matter of life and death. "MARGARET WALSINGHAM." Then she dressed herself and drove down to Regis in the carriage, clutching the dispatch in her hand, and drawing back from view whenever she passed a wayfarer, trembling lest her enemy should detect her in this move against his safety. After an hour of feverish impatience, an answer came which satisfied her. "I will come to-morrow night. "LADY J. DUCIE." She went out to her carriage with a triumphant air: she felt that she was one move ahead of the colonel. "Lady Juliana shall strip him of his disguise," she thought, "and the executors shall be present to see the exposure." She stopped before Mr. Davenport's office, wrote a line on her card requesting that he and Dr. Gay would come to the castle the following evening about seven o'clock, and then she hurried home. The next day passed with the anxious girl slowly enough; as the evening drew on, which she hoped would be the last of her enemy's imposture, her excitement became terrible; she was in that stage of over-strained endurance in which a triviality turns the brain.