rest in her.

Wyvis the ploughman was accidentally killed, and Mary's child, named
John after his father, was born shortly after the ploughman's death. It
was then that Mark Brand sought out his old love, and to better purpose
than before. His passion for her had been strengthened by what he was
pleased to call her desertion of him. He proposed marriage, and offered
to adopt the boy. Mary Wyvis accepted both propositions, and left
England with him almost immediately, in order to escape mocking and
slanderous tongues.

It was inevitable that evil should be said of her. Mark Brand's pursuit
of her before her marriage to Wyvis had been well known. That she should
marry him so soon after her first husband's death seemed to point to
some continued understanding between the two, and caused much gossip in
the neighborhood. Such gossip was really unfounded, for Mary was a good
woman in her way, though not a very wise one; but the charges against
her were believed in many places, and never disproved. It was even
whispered that the little boy was Mark Brand's own son, and that John
Wyvis had met his death through some foul play. Rumors of this kind died
down in course of time. But they were certainly sufficient to account
for the disfavor with which the County eyed the Brands in general, and
Mrs. Brand in particular. Mark Brand lived very little at the Red House
after his marriage. He knew what a storm of indignation had been spent
upon his conduct, and he was well aware of the aspersions on his wife's
character. He was too reckless by nature to try to set things straight:
he considered that he did his best for his family when he left England
behind him, and trained the boys, Wyvis and Cuthbert, to love a foreign
land better than their own.

He grew very fond of Mary's boy during the first few years of his
married life. This fondness led him to wish that the boy were his own,
and the appearance of Cuthbert did not alter this odd liking for another
man's son. He never cared very much for Cuthbert, who was delicate and
lame from babyhood; but Wyvis was the apple of his eye. The boy was
called John Wyvis: it was easy enough in a foreign country to let him
slip into the position of the eldest of the family as Wyvis Brand. A
baby son was born before Cuthbert, and dying a month old, gave Mark all
the opportunity that he needed. He sent word to old Wyvis at Roxby that
John's boy was dead; and he then quietly substituted Wyvis in place