unjustifiable from beginning to end. The disclosure of his
parentage explained many little things which had been puzzling to him
in his previous life, but it brought with it a baffling, passionate
sense of having been fooled and duped--not a condition of things which
was easy for him to support. Little by little the whole story became
clear to him. For, when he flung out of the Red House after Margaret's
departure, in a tumult of rage and shame, announcing his determination
to go to the devil, he did not immediately seek out the Prince of
Darkness: he only went to his lawyer. His lawyer told him a good deal,
and Mrs. Brand, in a letter dictated to Janetta, told him more.

Mary Wyvis, the daughter of the village inn-keeper at Roxby, was brought
up to act as his barmaid, and early became engaged to marry her cousin,
John Wyvis, ploughman. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, when Mark
Brand appeared upon the scene, and fell desperately in love with the
handsome barmaid. She returned his love, but was too conscientious to
elope with him and forget her cousin, as he wished her to do. Her father
supported John's claim, and threatened to horsewhip the fine gentleman
if he visited the Roxby Arms again. By way of change, Mary then went
into domestic service for a few weeks at Helmsley Manor. It was not
expected that she would remain there, and it was thought by her friends
that she distinctly "lowered herself" by accepting this position, for
her father was a well-to-do man in his way; but Mary Wyvis made the
break with Mark Brand by this new departure which she considered it
essential for her to make; and she was thereby delivered from his
attentions for a time. At Helmsley Manor she was treated with much
consideration, being considered a superior young person for her class;
and although only a scullery maid in name, she was allowed a good deal
of liberty, and promoted to attend on Lady Caroline Bertie, who, as a
girl of fourteen, was then visiting Mrs. Adair, the mother of the man
whom she afterward married. Mary Wyvis was lured into confiding one or
two of her little secrets to Lady Caroline; and when she left Helmsley
Court to marry John Wyvis, that young lady took so much interest in the
affair that she attended the wedding and gave the bride a
wedding-present. And as she often visited the Adairs, she seldom failed
to asked after Mary, until that consummation of Mary's fate which
effectually destroyed Lady Caroline's inte