of
his own son. Every year, he argued, would make the real difference of
age between John's boy and the dead child less apparent: it would save
trouble to speak of Wyvis as his own, and troublesome inquiries were not
likely to be made. Time and use made him almost forget that Wyvis did
not really belong to him; and but for his wife's insistence he would not
even have made the will which secured the Red House to his adopted son.
Cuthbert was of course treated with scandalous injustice by this will;
but the secret had been well kept, and the story was fully known to
nobody save the Brands' lawyer and Mary Brand herself.

The way in which Lady Caroline had ferreted out the secret remained a
mystery to the Brands. But they never gave her half enough credit for
her remarkable cleverness. When she saw Wyvis Brand, she had been struck
almost at once by his likeness to John Wyvis, the man who married her
old favorite, Mary. She leaped quickly to the conviction that he was not
Mark Brand's son. And when Margaret's infatuation for him declared
itself, she went straight to her husband's man of business, and
commissioned him to find out all that could be found out about the
Brands during the period of their early married life in Italy. The task
was surprisingly easy. Mark Brand had taken few precautions, for he had
drifted rather than deliberately steered towards the substitution of
Wyvis for his own eldest son. A very few inquiries elicited all that
Lady Caroline wanted to know. But she had not been quite sure of her
facts when she entered the Red House, and, if Mrs. Brand had been a
little cooler and a little braver, she might have defeated her enemy's
ends, and carried her secret inviolate to her grave.

But courage and coolness were the last things that could be expected
from Mrs. Brand. She had never possessed a strong mind and the various
chances and changes of her life had enfeebled instead of strengthening
it. Mark Brand had proved by no means a loving or faithful husband, and
did not scruple to taunt her with her inferiority of position, and to
threaten that he would mortify Wyvis' pride some day by a revelation of
his true name and descent. He was too fond of Wyvis to carry his threat
into effect but he made the poor woman, his wife, suffer an infinity of
torture, the greater part of which might have been avoided if she had
chanced to be gifted with a higher spirit and a firmer will.

Wyvis Brand went immediately to Lo