Margaret gathered together these letters, and examined them. Three of
them--very old, faded, and flabby--were directed to "Joseph Wilmot, care
of the Governor of Norfolk Island," in a prim, clerk-like hand.
It was an ominous address. Margaret Wentworth bowed her head upon her
knees and sobbed aloud.
"He had been very wicked, and had need of a long life of penitence," she
thought; "but he has been murdered by Henry Dunbar."
There was no shadow of doubt now in her mind. She had in her own hand
the conclusive proof of the identity between Joseph Wilmot and her
father; and to her this seemed quite enough to prove that Henry Dunbar
was the murderer of his old servant. He had injured the man, and it was
in the man's power to do him injury. He had resolved, therefore, to get
rid of this old accomplice, this dangerous witness of the past.
This was how Margaret reasoned. That the crime committed in the quiet
grove, near St. Cross, was an every-day deed, done for the most pitiful
and sordid motives that can tempt a man to shed his brother's blood,
never for a moment entered into her thoughts. Other people might think
this in their ignorance of the story of the past.
At daybreak the next morning she left the house, after giving a very
brief explanation of her departure to the old woman with whom she
lodged.
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