urs,

"Blandamer."

Westray was eager, impressionable, still subject to all the exaltations
and depressions of youth. Thoughts crowded into his mind with
bewildering rapidity; they trod so close upon each other's heels that
there was no time to marshal them in order; excitement had dizzied him.
Was he called to be the minister of justice? Was he chosen for the
scourge of God? Was his the hand that must launch the bolt against the
guilty? Discovery had come directly to him. What a piece of
circumstantial evidence were these very lines that lay open on the
table, dim and illegible in the darkness that filled the room! Yet
clear and damning to one who had the clue.

This man that ruled at Fording was a pretender, enjoying goods that
belonged to others, a shameless evil-doer, who had not stuck at marrying
innocent Anastasia Joliffe, if by so stooping he might cover up the
traces of his imposture. There was no Lord Blandamer, there was no
title; with a breath he could sweep it all away like a house of cards.
And was that all? Was there nothing else?

Night had fallen. Westray sat alone in the dark, his elbows on the
table, his head still between his hands. There was no fire, there was
no light, only the faint shimmer of a far-off street lamp brought a
perception of the darkness. It was that pale uncertain luminosity that
recalled to his mind another night, when the misty moon shone through
the clerestory windows of Saint Sepulchre's. He seemed once more to be
making his way up the ghostly nave, on past the pillars that stood like
gigantic figures in white winding-sheets, on under the great tower
arches. Once more he was groping in the utter darkness of the newel
stair, once more he came out into the organ-loft, and saw the baleful
silver and sea-green of the nebuly coat gleaming in the transept window.
And in the corners of the room lurked presences of evil, and a thin
pale shadow of Sharnall wrung its hands, and cried to be saved from the
man with the hammer. Then the horrible suspicion that had haunted him
these last days stared out of the darkness as a fact, and he sprung to
his feet in a shiver of cold and lit a candle.

An hour, two hours, three hours passed before he had written an answer
to the letter that lay before him, and in the interval a fresh
vicissitude of mind had befallen him. He, Westray, had been singled out
as the instrument of vengeance; the clue was in his hands; his was the
mouth