The evil had come at last. Retribution, which they too surely invoked when they diverted God's laws of right and justice from their direct course years ago, was working itself just now. Retribution is a thing that _must_ come; though tardy, as it had been in this case, it is sure. Look around you, you who have had much of life's experience, who may be drawing into its "sear and yellow leaf." It is impossible but that you have gathered up in the garner of your mind instances you have noted in your career. In little things and in great, the working of evil inevitably brings forth its reward. Years, and years, and years may elapse; so many, that the hour of vengeance seems to have rolled away under the glass of time; but we need never hope that, for it cannot be. In your day, ill-doer, or in your children's, it will surely come. The agony of mind, endured now by the inmates of Trevlyn Hold, seemed sufficient punishment for a whole lifetime and its misdoings. Should they indeed be turned from it, as these mysterious letters appeared to indicate, that open, tangible punishment would be as nothing to what they were mentally enduring now. And they could not speak of their griefs one to another, and so lessen them in ever so slight a degree. Mr. Chattaway would not speak of the dread tugging at his heart-strings--for it seemed to him that only to speak of the _possibility_ of being driven forth, might bring it the nearer; and his unhappy wife dared not so much as breathe the name of Rupert, and the fatal secret she held. She, Mrs. Chattaway, was puzzled more than all by these letters from Connell and Connell. Mr. Chattaway could trace their source (at least he strove to do so) to the malicious mind and pen of Rupert; but Mrs. Chattaway knew that Rupert it could not well be. Nevertheless, she had been staggered on the arrival of the second to find it explicitly stated that Rupert Trevlyn had written to announce his speedy intention of taking possession of the Hold. "Rupert had written to them!" What was she to think? If it was not Rupert, someone else must have written in his name; but who would be likely to trouble themselves now for the lost Rupert?--regarded as dead by three parts of the world. Had Rupert written? Mrs. Chattaway determined again to ask him, and to set the question so far at rest. But she did not do this for two days after the arrival of the letter. She waited the answer which Mr. Flood wrote up to Connell and Connell, spoken of in the last chapter. As soon as that came, and she found that it explained nothing, then she resolved to question Rupert at her next stolen visit. That same afternoon, as she returned on foot from Barmester, she contrived to slip unseen into the lodge.