"Hers!" he muttered; "hers! to have and hold so long as she lives! A nameless woman has tricked me out of the inheritance which should have been mine. But let her beware! Despair is bold, and I may yet discover some mode of vengeance." While the departing traveller mused thus, a pale woman stood at one of the windows of Raynham Castle, looking out upon the woods, over which the moon sailed in all her glory. "Mine!" she said to herself; "those lands and woods belong to me!--to me, who have stood face to face with starvation!--to me, who have considered it a privilege to sleep in an empty barn! They are mine; but the possession of them brings no pleasure. My life has been blighted by a wrong so cruel, that wealth and position are worthless in my eyes." * * * * * CHAPTER XIII. IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG. Early upon the morning after the funeral, a lad from the village of Raynham presented himself at the principal door of the servants' offices, and asked to see Lady Eversleigh's maid. The young woman who filled that office was summoned, and came to inquire the business of the messenger. Her name was Jane Payland; she was a Londoner by birth, and a citizen of the world by education. She had known very little of either comfort or prosperity before she entered the service of Lady Eversleigh. She was, therefore, in some measure at least, devoted to the interests of that mistress, and she was inclined to believe in her innocence; though, even to her, the story of the night in Yarborough Tower seemed almost too wild and improbable for belief. Jane Payland was about twenty-four years of age, tall, slim, and active. She had no pretensions to beauty; but was the sort of person who is generally called lady-like. This morning she went to the little lobby, in which the boy had been told to wait, indignant at the impertinence of anyone who could dare to intrude upon her mistress at such a time. "Who are you, and what do you want?" she asked angrily. "If you please, ma'am, I'm Widow Beckett's son," the boy answered, in evident terror of the young woman in the rustling black silk dress and smart cap; "and I've brought this letter, please; and I was only to give it to the lady's own maid, please. "I am her own maid," answered Jane. The boy handed her a dirty-looking letter, directed, in a bold clear hand, to Lady Eversleigh. "Who gave you this?" asked Jane Payland, looking at the dirty envelope with extreme disgust. "It was a tramp as give it me--a tramp as I met in the village; and I'm to wait for an answer, please, and I'm to take it to him at the 'Hen and Chickens.'" "How dare you bring Lady Eversleigh a letter given you by a tramp--a begging letter, of course? I wonder at your impudence."