 SCENE 4 CHAPTER III The threatening of storm and change passed away with the night. When morning rose over Aldbra, the sun was master in the blue heaven, and the waves were rippling gaily under the summer breeze. At an hour, when no other visitors to the watering place were yet to stir, the indefatigable rag appeared at the door of North Shinglesville, and directed his steps northward with a neatly bound copy of Joyce's scientific dialogues in his hand. Arriving at the waste-ground beyond the houses, he descended to the beach and opened his book. The interview of the past night had sharpened his perception of the difficulties to be encountered in the coming enterprise. He was now doubly determined to try the characteristic experiment at which he had hinted in his letter to Magdalen, and to concentrate on himself, in the character of a remarkably well-informed man, the entire interest and attention of the formidable Mrs. LeCount. Having taken his dose of ready-made science, to use his own expression, the first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, Captain Ragh joined his small family circle at breakfast time, inflated with information for the day. He observed that Magdalen's face showed plain signs of a sleepless night. She made no complaint, her manner was composed, and her temper perfectly under control. Mrs. Ragh, refreshed by some thirteen consecutive hours of uninterrupted repose, was in excellent spirits and up at heel, for a wonder, with both shoes. She brought with her into the room several large sheets of tissue paper, cut crisply into mysterious and many varying forms, which immediately provoked from her husband the short and sharp question, What have you got there? Patterns, Captain, said Mrs. Ragh, intimately conciliating tones. I went shopping in London and bought an oriental cashmere robe. It cost a deal of money, and I'm going to try and save by making it myself. I've got the patterns, and my dressmaking directions written out as plain as print. I'll be very tidy, Captain. I'll keep in my own corner, if you're pleased to give me one. And whether my head buzzes, or whether it don't, I'll sit straight at my work all the same. You will do your work, said the Captain sternly, when you know who you are, who I am, and who that young lady is, not before. Show me your shoes? Good. Show me your cap? Good. Make the breakfast. When breakfast was over, Mrs. Ragh received her orders to retire into an adjoining room and to wait there until her husband came to release her. As soon as her back was turned, Captain Ragh once resumed the conversation, which had been suspended by Magdalen's own desire on the preceding night. The questions he now put to her all related to the subject of her visit in disguise to Noel Vanstone's house. They were the questions of a thoroughly clear-headed man, short, searching, and straight to the point. In less than half an hour's time he had made himself acquainted with every incident that had happened in Vauxhall Walk. The conclusions which the Captain drew, after gaining his information, were clear and easily stated. On the adverse side of the question he expressed his conviction that Mrs. LeCount had certainly detected her visitor to be disguised, that she had never really left the room, though she might have opened and shut the door, and that on both the occasions therefore when Magdalen had been betrayed into speaking in her own voice, Mrs. LeCount had heard her. On the favourable side of the question he was perfectly satisfied that the painted face and eyelids, the wig, and the padded cloak had so effectively concealed Magdalen's identity that she might, in her own person, defy the housekeeper's closest scrutiny, so far as the matter of appearance was concerned. The difficulty of deceiving Mrs. LeCount's ears, as well as her eyes, was he readily admitted not so easily to be disposed of. But looking to the fact that Magdalen, on both the occasions when she had forgotten herself, had spoken in the heat of anger, he was of the opinion that her voice had every reasonable chance of escaping detection, if she carefully avoided all outbursts of temper for the future, and spoke in those more composed and ordinary terms which Mrs. LeCount had not yet heard. Upon the whole the captain was inclined to pronounce the prospect hopeful, if one serious obstacle were cleared away at the outset, that obstacle being nothing less than the presence on the scene of action of Mrs. Ragh. To Magdalen's surprise, when the course of her narrative brought her to the story of the ghost, Captain Ragh listened with the air of a man who was more annoyed than amused by what he heard. When she had done, he plainly told her that her unlucky meeting on the stairs of the lodging-house with Mrs. Ragh was, in his opinion, the most serious of all the accidents that had happened in Vauxhall Walk. I can deal with the difficulty of my wife's stupidity, he said, as I have often dealt with it before. I can hammer her new identity into her head, but I can't hammer the ghost out of it. We have no security that the woman in the grey cloak and poke bonnet may not come back to her recollection at the most critical time and under the most awkward circumstances. In plain English, my dear girl, Mrs. Ragh is a pitfall under our feet at every step we take. If we are aware of the pitfall, said Magdalen, we can take our measures for avoiding it. What do you propose? I propose, replied the Captain, the temporary removal of Mrs. Ragh. Speaking purely in a pecuniary point of view, I can't afford a total separation from her. You have often read of very poor people being suddenly enriched by legacies reaching them from remote and unexpected quarters. Mrs. Ragh's case, when I married her, was one of these. An elderly female relative shared the favours of fortune on that occasion with my wife, and if I only keep up domestic appearances, I happen to know that Mrs. Ragh will prove a second-time profitable to me on that elderly relative's death. But for this circumstance, I should probably long since have transferred my wife to the care of society at large in the agreeable conviction that if I didn't support her, somebody else would. Although I can't afford to take this course, I see no objection to having her comfortably boarded and lodged out of our way for the time being. Say at a retired farmhouse, in the character of a lady in infirm mental health. You would find the expense trifling. I should find the relief unutterable. What do you say? Shall I pack her up at once and take her away by the next coach? No, replied Magdal infirmly. The poor creature's life is hard enough already. I won't help to make it harder. She was affectionately and truly kind to me when I was ill, and I won't allow her to be shut up among strangers while I can help it. The risk of keeping her here is only one risk more. I will face it, Captain Ragh, if you won't. Think twice, said the Captain gravely, before you decide on keeping Mrs. Ragh. Once is enough, rejoined Magdalyn, I won't have her sent away. Very good, said the Captain, resignedly. I never interfere with questions of sentiment, but I have a word to say on my own behalf. If my services are to be of any use to you, I can't have my hands tied at starting. This is serious. I won't trust my wife and Mrs. LeCount together. I'm afraid, if you are not, and I make it a condition that, if Mrs. Ragh stops here, she keeps her room. If you think her health requires it, you can take her for a walk early in the morning, or late in the evening. But you must never trust her out with the servant, and never trust her out by herself. I put the matter plainly, it is too important to be trifled with. What do you say, yes or no? I say yes, replied Magdalyn after a moment's consideration, on the understanding the time to take her out walking as you propose. Captain Ragh bowed and recovered his suavity of manner. What are our plans, he inquired. Shall we start our enterprise this afternoon? Are you ready for your introduction to Mrs. LeCount and her master? Quite ready. Good again, we will meet them on the parade, at their usual hour for going out, two o'clock. It is not twelve yet, I have two hours before me, just enough time to fit my wife into her new skin. The process is absolutely necessary to prevent her compromising us with the servant. Don't be afraid about the results, Mrs. Ragh has had a copious selection of assumed names hammered into her head in the course of her matrimonial career. It is merely a question of hammering hard enough, nothing more. I think we have settled everything now. Is there anything I can do before two o'clock? Have you any employment for the morning? No, said Magdalyn, I shall go back to my own room and try to rest. You had a disturbed night, I am afraid, said the captain, politely opening the door for her. I fell asleep once or twice, she answered carelessly. I suppose my nerves are a little shaken. The bold black eyes of that man, who stared so rudely at me yesterday evening, seemed to be looking at me again in my dreams. If we see him today, and if he annoys me any more, I must trouble you to speak to him. We will meet here again at two o'clock. Should be hard with Mrs. Ragh, teach her what she must learn as tenderly as you can. With those words she left him, and went upstairs. She lay down on her bed with a heavy sigh, and tried to sleep. It was useless. The dull weariness of herself, which now possessed her, was not the weariness which finds its remedy in repose. She rose again, and sat by the window, looking out listlessly over the sea. A weaker nature than hers would not have felt the shock of Frank's desertion as she had felt it, as she was feeling it still. A weaker nature would have found refuge in indignation, and comfort in tears. The passionate strength of Magdalen's love clung desperately to the sinking wreck of its own delusion, clung until she tore herself from it by plain force of will. All that her native pride, her keen sense of wrong could do, was to shame her from dwelling on thoughts which still caught their breath of life from the undying devotion of the past, which still perversely ascribed Frank's heartless farewell to any cause but the inborn baseness of the man who had written it. The woman never lived yet who could cast a true love out of her heart because the object of that love was unworthy of her. All she can do is to struggle against it in secret, to sink in the contest if she is weak, to win her way through it if she is strong, by a process of self-laceration which is, of all moral remedies applied to a woman's nature, the most dangerous and the most desperate. Of all moral changes, the change that is surest to mark her for life. Magdalen's strong nature had sustained her through the struggle, and the issue of it had left her what she now was. After sitting by the window for nearly an hour, her eyes looking mechanically at the view, her mind empty of all impressions and conscious of no thoughts, she shook off the strange waking stupor that possessed her, and rose to prepare herself for the serious business of the day. She went to the wardrobe and took down from the pegs two bright delicate muslin dresses, which had been made for summer wear at Coombe Raven a year since, and which had been of too little value to be worth selling when she parted with her other possessions. After placing these dresses side by side on the bed, she looked into the wardrobe once more. It only contained one other summer dress, the plain alpaca gown, which she had worn during her memorable interview with Nell Vanstone and Mrs. LeCount. This she left in its place, resolving not to wear it. Less from any dread that the housekeeper might recognise a pattern too quiet to be noticed and too common to remember, than from the conviction that it was neither gay enough nor becoming enough for her purpose. After taking a plain white muslin scarf, a pair of light grey kid gloves, and a garden hat of tusk and straw from the drawers of the wardrobe. She locked it and put the key carefully in her pocket. Instead of at once proceeding to dress herself, she sat idly looking at the two muslin gowns, careless which she wore, and yet inconsistently hesitating which to choose. What does it matter, she said to herself with a reckless laugh, I am equally worthless in my own estimation, whichever I put on. She shuddered, as if the sound of her own laughter had startled her, and abruptly caught up the dress which lay nearest to her hand. Its colours were blue and white, the shade of blue which best suited her fair complexion. She hurriedly put on the gown, without going near her looking-glass. For the first time in her life, she shrank from meeting the reflection of herself, except for a moment when she arranged her hair under her garden hat, leaving the glass again immediately. She drew her scarf over her shoulders and fitted on her gloves, with her back to the toilet table. Shall I paint, she asked herself, feeling instinctively that she was turning pale. The rouge is still left in my box, it can't make my face more false than it is already. She looked round toward the glass, and again turned away from it. No, she said, I have Mrs. LeCount to face as well as her master. No paint. After consulting her watch, she left the room and went downstairs again. It wanted ten minutes only of two o'clock. One rag was waiting for her in the parlour, respectable in a frock coat, a stiff summer cravat, and a high white hat, specklessly and cheerfully rural, in a buff waistcoat, grey trousers, and gaiters to match. His collars were higher than ever, and he carried a brand new camp stool in his hand. Any tradesman in England who had seen him at that moment would have trusted him on the spot. Nothing said the captain, paternally surveying Magdalen when she entered the room. So fresh and cool, a little too pale, my dear, and a great deal too serious, otherwise perfect. Try if you can smile. When the time comes for smiling, said Magdalen bitterly, trust my dramatic training for any change of face that may be necessary. Where is Mrs. Rag? Mrs. Rag has learned her lesson, replied the captain, and is rewarded by my permission to sit at work in her own room. I sanction her new fancy for dressmaking because it is sure to absorb all her attention and to keep her at home. There is no fear of her finishing the Oriental robe in a hurry, for there is no mistake in the process of making it which she is not certain to commit. She will sit incubating her gown, pardon the expression, like a hen over an adult egg. I assure you her new whim relieves me, nothing could be more convenient under existing circumstances. He strutted away to the window, looked out, and beckoned Magdalen to join him. There they are, he said, and pointed to the parade. Noel Vanstone slowly walked by as she looked, dressed in a complete suit of old-fashioned nankine. It was apparently one of the days when the state of his health was at the worst. He leaned on Mrs. La Count's arm, and was protected from the sun by a light umbrella which she held over him. The housekeeper, dressed a perfection as usual, in a quiet lavender-coloured summer gown, a black mantilla, an unassuming straw bonnet, and a crisp blue veil, escorted her invalid master with the tenderest attention, sometimes directing his notice respectfully to the various objects of the sea view, sometimes bending her head in graceful acknowledgment of the courtesy of passing strangers on the parade, who stepped aside to let the invalid pass by. She produced a visible effect among the idlers on the beach. They looked after her with unanimous interest, and exchanged confidential nods of approval, which said, as plainly as words could have expressed it, a very domestic person, a truly superior woman. Captain Ragh's party-coloured eyes followed Mrs. La Count with a steady, distrustful attention. Tough work for us there, he whispered in Magdalen's ear. Tougher work than you think, before we turned that woman out of her place. Wait, said Magdalen quietly. Wait and see. She walked to the door. The captain followed her, without making any further remark. I'll wait till you're married, he thought to himself. Not a moment longer, offer me what you may. At the house door Magdalen addressed him again. We will go that way, she said, pointing southward, then turn and meet them as they come back. Captain Ragh signified his approval of the arrangement, and followed Magdalen to the garden gate. As she opened it to pass through, her attention was attracted by a lady, with a nursery maid and two little boys behind her, loitering on the path outside the garden wall. The lady started, looked eagerly, and smiled to herself as Magdalen came out. Curiosity had got the better of Kirk's sister, and she had come to Aldbra for the express purpose of seeing Miss Bygrave. Something in the shape of the lady's face, something in the expression of her dark eyes reminded Magdalen of the merchant captain whose uncontrolled admiration had annoyed her on the previous evening. She instantly returned the stranger's scrutiny by a frowning, ungracious look. The lady coloured, paid the look back with interest, and slowly walked on. A hard, bold, bad girl thought Kirk's sister. What could Robert be thinking of to admire her? I'm almost glad he is gone. I hope and trust he will never set eyes on Miss Bygrave again. What bores the people are here, said Magdalen to Captain Ragh. That woman was even ruder than the man last night. She is like him in the face. I wonder who she is. I'll find out directly, said the captain. We can't be too cautious about strangers. He at once appealed to his friends the boatman. They were close at hand, and Magdalen heard the questions and answers plainly. How are you all this morning? said Captain Ragh, in his easy jocular way. And how's the wind? Nor west and by west, is it? Very good. Who's that lady? That's Mrs Strickland, sir. Aye, aye, the clergyman's wife, and the captain's sister. Where's the captain today? On his way to London, I should think, sir. He ships sails for China at the end of the week. China. As that one word passed the man's lips, a pang of the old sorrow struck Magdalen to the heart. Stranger as he was, she began to hate the bare mention of the merchant captain's name. He had troubled her dreams of the past night, and now, when she was most desperately and recklessly bent on forgetting her old home, existence, he had been indirectly the cause of recalling her mind to Frank. Come! she said angrily to her companion. What do we care about the man or his ship? Come away! By all means, said Captain Ragh, as long as we don't find friends of the by-graves, what do we care about anybody? They walked on southward for ten minutes or more, then turned, and walked back again to meet Nell Vanstone and Mrs LeCount. CHAPTER IV Captain Ragh and Magdalen retraced their steps until they were again within view of North Shingles Villa before any signs appeared of Mrs LeCount and her master. At that point the housekeeper's lavender-coloured dress, the umbrella, and the feeble little figure in Nan Keen walking under it, became visible in the distance. The captain slackened his pace immediately, and issued his directions to Magdalen for her conduct at the coming interview in these words. Don't forget your smile, he said, in all other respects you will do. The walk has improved your complexion, and the hat becomes you. Look Mrs LeCount steadily in the face, show no embarrassment when you speak, and if Mr Nell Vanstone pays you pointed attention, don't take too much notice of him while the housekeeper's eye is on you. Mind one thing, I have been at Joyce's scientific dialogues all the morning, and I am quite serious in meaning to give Mrs LeCount the full benefit of my studies. If I can't contrive to divert her attention from you and her master, I won't give sixpence for our chances of success. All talk won't succeed with that woman, compliments won't succeed, jokes won't succeed, ready-made science may recall the deceased professor, and ready-made science may do. We must establish a code of signals to let you know what I am about. Observe this camp stool. When I shift it from my left hand to my right, I am talking Joyce. When I shift it from my right hand to my left, I am talking Ragh. In the first case, don't interrupt me, I am leading up to my point. In the second case, say anything you like. My remarks are not of the slightest consequence. Would you like a rehearsal? Are you sure you understand? Very good, take my arm and look happy, steady, here they are. The meeting took place nearly midway between Seaview Cottage and North Schingles. Captain Ragh took off his tall white hat and opened the interview immediately on the friendliest terms. Good morning, Mrs. LeCount, he said, with the frank and cheerful politeness of a naturally sociable man. Good morning, Mr. Vanstone. I am sorry to see you suffering today. Mrs. LeCount, permit me to introduce my niece. My niece, Miss Bygrave. My dear girl, this is Mr. Nell Vanstone, our neighbour at Seaview Cottage. We must positively be sociable at Alborough, Mrs. LeCount. There is only one walk in the place, as my niece remarked to me, just now, Mr. Vanstone. And on that walk we must all meet every time we go out. And why not? Are we formal people on either side? Nothing of the sort. We are just the reverse. You possess the continental facility of manner, Mr. Vanstone. I match you with the blunt cordiality of an old-fashioned Englishman. The ladies mingle together in harmonious variety, like flowers on the same bed. And the result is a mutual interest in making our sojourn at the seaside agreeable to each other. Pardon my flow of spirits. Pardon my feeling so cheerful and so young. The iodine in the sea air, Mrs. LeCount. The notorious effect of the iodine in the sea air. You arrived yesterday, Miss Bygrave, did you not? said the housekeeper, as soon as the captain's deluge of language had come to an end. She addressed those words to Magdalen with a gentle, motherly interest in her youth and beauty, chastened by the deferential amiability which became her situation in Nell Vanstone's household. But the faintest token of suspicion or surprise betrayed itself in her face, her voice or her manner, while she and Magdalen now looked at each other. It was plain at the outset that the true face and figure which she now saw recall nothing to her mind of the false face and figure which she had seen in Voxel Walk. The disguise had evidently been complete enough even to baffle the penetration of Mrs. LeCount. My aunt and I came here yesterday evening, said Magdalen. We found the latter part of the journey very fatiguing. I dare say you found it so too? She designedly made her answer longer than was necessary for the purpose of discovering, at the earliest opportunity, the effect which the sound of her voice produced on Mrs. LeCount. The housekeeper's thin lips maintained their motherly smile. The housekeeper's amiable manner lost none of its modest deference. But the expression of her eyes suddenly changed from a look of attention to a look of inquiry. Magdalen quietly said a few words more and then waited again for results. The change spread gradually all over Mrs. LeCount's face. The motherly smile died away and the amiable manner betrayed a slight touch of restraint. Still no signs of positive recognition appeared. The housekeeper's expression remained what it had been from the first. An expression of inquiry and nothing more. You complained of fatigue, sir, a few minutes since, she said, dropping all further conversation with Magdalen and addressing her master. Will you go indoors and rest? The proprietor of Seaview Cottage had hitherto confined himself to bowing, simpering and admiring Magdalen through his half-closed eyelids. There was no mistaking the sudden flutter and agitation in his manner and the heightened colour in his whisen little face. Even the reptile temperament of Noel Vanstone warmed under the influence of the sex. He had an undeniably appreciative eye for a handsome woman, and Magdalen's grace and beauty were not thrown away on him. Will you go indoors, sir, and rest? asked the housekeeper, repeating her question. Not yet, LeCount said her master. I fancy I feel stronger. I fancy I can go on a little. He turned simpering to Magdalen and added in a lower tone. I have found a new interest in my walk, Miss Bygrave. Don't desert us, or you will take the interest away with you. He smiled and smirked in the highest approval of the ingenuity of his own compliment. From which Captain Ragh dexterously diverted the housekeeper's attention by ranging himself on her side of the path and speaking to her at the same moment. They all four walked on slowly. Mrs. LeCount said nothing more. She kept fast hold of her master's arm and looked across him at Magdalen with the dangerous expression of inquiry more marked than ever in her hands and black eyes. That look was not lost on the wary rag. He shifted his indicative camp-stool from the left hand to the right and opened his scientific batteries on the spot. A busy scene, Mrs. LeCount said the captain, politely waving his camp-stool over the sea and the passing ships. The greatness of England, ma'am, the true greatness of England. Pray observe how heavily some of those vessels are laden. I am often inclined to wonder whether the British sailor is at all aware, when he has got his cargo on board, of the hydrostatic importance of the operation that he has performed. If I was suddenly transported to the deck of one of those ships, which heaven forbid for I suffer at sea, and if I said to a member of the crew, Jack, you have done wonders. You have grasped the theory of floating vessels. How the gallant fellow would stare. And yet, on that theory, Jack's life depends. If he loads his vessel one thirtieth part more than he ought, what happens? He sails past Old Bra, I grant you, in safety. He enters the Thames, I grant you, again, in safety. He gets on into the freshwater as far, let us say, as Greenwich, and down he goes, down, ma'am, to the bottom of the river as a matter of scientific certainty. Here he paused and left Mrs. LeCount no polite alternative, but to request an explanation. With infinite pleasure, ma'am, said the captain, drowning in the deepest notes of his voice, the feeble treble in which Nelvanstone paid his compliments to Magdalen. We will start, if you please, with the first principle. All bodies, whatever that float on the surface of the water, displace as much fluid as is equal in weight to the weight of the bodies. Good, we have got our first principle. What do we deduce from it? Manifestly this, that in order to keep a vessel above water, it is necessary to take care that the vessel and its cargo shall be of less weight than the weight of a quantity of water. Pray follow me here, of a quantity of water equal in bulk to that part of the vessel which it will be safe to immerse in the water. Now, ma'am, salt water is specifically 30 times heavier than fresh or river water, and a vessel in the German ocean will not sink so deep as a vessel in the Thames. Consequently, when we load our ship with a view to the London market, we have, hydrostatically speaking, three alternatives. Either we load with one 30th part less than we can carry at sea, or we take one 30th part out of the mouth of the river, or we do neither the one nor the other, and, as I have already had the honour of remarking, down we go. Such, said the captain, shifting the campstall back again from his right hand to his left, in token that Joyce was done with for the time being, such, my dear madam, is the theory of floating vessels. Permit me to add, in conclusion, you are heartily welcome to it. Thank you, sir, said Mrs. LeCount. You have unintentionally saddened me, but the information I have received is not the less precious on that account. It is long, long ago, Mr. Biograve, since I have had heard myself addressed in the language of science. My dear husband made me his companion. My dear husband improved my mind, as you have been trying to improve it. Nobody has taken pains with my intellect since. Many thanks, sir. Your kind consideration for me is not thrown away. She sighed, with a plaintive humility, and privately opened her ears to the conversation on the other side of her. A minute earlier she would have heard her master expressing himself in the most flattering terms on the subject of Mrs. Biograve's appearance in her seaside costume. But Magdalene had seen Captain Ragh's signal with the campstall and had once diverted Noel Vanstone to the topic of himself and his possessions by a neatly timed question about his house at Albre. I didn't wish to alarm you, Mrs. Biograve, with the first words of Noel Vanstone's which caught Mrs. LeCount's attention, but there is only one safe house in Albre, and that house is mine. The sea may destroy all the other houses, it can't destroy mine. My father took care of that. My father was a remarkable man. He had my house built on piles. I have reason to believe they are the strongest piles in England. Nothing can possibly knock them down. I don't care what the sea does, nothing can possibly knock them down. Then if the sea invades us, said Magdalene, we must all run for refuge to you. Noel Vanstone saw his way to another compliment, and at the same moment the wary captain saw his way to another burst of science. I could almost wish the invasion might happen, Myrmaid, one of the gentlemen, to give me the happiness of offering the refuge. I could almost swear the wind had shifted again, exclaimed the other. Where is a man, I may ask. Oh, there he is, boatman. How's the wind now? Nor west and by west still, eh? And southeast and by south yesterday evening, ha! Is there anything more remarkable, Mrs. LeCount, than the variableness of the wind in this climate? Proceeded the captain, shifting his campstall to the scientific side of him. Is there any natural phenomenon more bewildering to the scientific inquirer? You will tell me that the electric fluid which abounds in the air is the principal cause of this variableness. You will remind me of the experiment of that illustrious philosopher who measured the velocity of a great storm by a flight of small feathers. My dear madam, I grant all your propositions. I beg your pardon, sir, said Mrs. LeCount. You kindly attribute to me a knowledge that I don't possess. Propositions, I regret to say, are quite beyond me. Don't misunderstand me, ma'am, continued the captain, politely unconscious of the interruption. My remarks apply to the temperate zone only. Place me on the coasts beyond the tropics. Place me where the wind blows toward the shore in the daytime and toward the sea by night and I instantly advance toward conclusive experiments. For example, I know that the heat of the sun during the day rareifies the air over the land and so causes the wind. You challenge me to prove it? I escort you down the kitchen stairs with your kind permission. Take my largest pie dish out of the cook's hands. I fill it with cold water. Good. That dish of cold water represents the ocean. I next provide myself with one of our most precious domestic conveniences, a hot water plate. I fill it with hot water and I put it in the middle of the pie dish. Good again. The hot water plate represents the land rarifying the air over it. Bear that in mind and give me a lighted candle. I hold my lighted candle over the cold water and blow it out. The smoke immediately moves from the dish to the plate. Before you have time to express your satisfaction, I light the candle once more and reverse the whole proceeding. I fill the pie dish with hot water and the plate with cold. I blow the candle out again and the smoke moves this time from the plate to the dish. The smell is disagreeable, but the experiment is conclusive. He shifted the campstall back again and looked at Mrs. LeCount with his ingratiating smile. You don't find me long-winded, ma'am, do you? He said in his easy, cheerful way, just as the housekeeper was privately opening her ears once more to the conversation on the other side of her. I am amazed, sir, by the range of your information, replied Mrs. LeCount, observing the captain with some perplexity, but thus far with no distrust. She thought to him eccentric, even for an Englishman and possibly a little vain of his knowledge, but he had at least paid her the implied compliment of addressing that knowledge to herself. And she felt it the more sensibly from having hitherto found her scientific sympathies with her deceased husband, treated with no great respect by the people with whom she came into contact. Have you extended your inquiries, sir? She proceeded, after a momentary hesitation, to my late husband's branch of science. I merely asked Mr. Bygrave because, though I am only a woman, I think I might exchange ideas with you on the subject of the reptile creation. Captain Ragh was far too sharp to risk his ready-made science on the enemy's ground. The old militiaman shook his wary head. Oh, too vast a subject, ma'am, he said, for a smatterer like me. The life and labours of such a philosopher as your husband, Mrs. LeCount, warned men of my intellectual calibre not to measure themselves with a giant. May I inquire? Proceeded the captain, softly smoothing the way for future intercourse with sea view cottage. Whether you possess any scientific memorials of the late professor? I possess his tank, sir, said Mrs. LeCount, modestly casting her eyes on the ground and one of his subjects, a little foreign toad. His tank exclaimed the captain in tones of mournful interest and his toad. Pardon my blunt way of speaking my mind, ma'am. You possess an object of public interest and, as one of the public, I acknowledge my curiosity to see it. Mrs. LeCount smoothed cheeks coloured with pleasure. The one assailable place in that cold and secret nature was the place occupied by the memory of the professor. Her pride in his scientific achievements and her mortification at finding them, but little known out of his own country, were genuine feelings. Never had Captain Ragh burned his adulterated incense on the flimsy altar of human vanity to better purpose than he was burning it now. You are very good, sir, said Mrs. LeCount, in honour in my husband's memory, you honour me. But though you kindly treat me on a footing of equality, I must not forget that I fill a domestic situation. I shall feel it a privilege to show you my relics if you will allow me to ask my master's permission first. She turned to Noel Vanstone, her perfectly sincere intention of making the proposed request mingling in that strange complexity of motives which is found so much oftener in a woman's mind than in a man's, with her jealous distrust of the impression which Magdalene had produced on her master. May I make a request, sir? asked Mrs. LeCount after waiting a moment to catch any fragments of tenderly personal talk that might reach her, and after being again neatly baffled by Magdalene thanks to the campstool. Mr. Bygrave is one of the few persons in England who appreciates my husband's scientific labours. He honours me by wishing to see my little world of reptiles. May I show it to him? By all means, LeCount, said Noel Vanstone graciously. You are an excellent creature, and I like to oblige you. LeCount's tank, Mr. Bygrave, is the only tank in England. LeCount's toad is the oldest toad in the world. Will you come and drink tea at seven o'clock tonight? And will you prevail on Mrs. Bygrave to accompany you? I want her to see my house. I don't think she has any idea what a strong house it is. Come and survey my premises, Mr. Bygrave. You shall have a stick and wrap on the walls. You shall go upstairs and stamp on the floors. And then you shall hear what it all cost. His eyes wrinkled up cunningly at the corners, and he slipped another tender speech into Magdalene's ear. Under cover of the all-predominating voice in which Captain Rag thanked him for the invitation. Come punctually at seven, he whispered, and pray, wear that charming hat. Mrs. LeCount's lips closed ominously. She set down the Captain's niece as a very serious drawback to the intellectual luxury of the Captain's society. You're fatiguing yourself, sir, she said to her master. This is one of your bad days. Let me recommend you to be careful. Let me beg you to walk back. Having carried his point by inviting the new acquaintances to tea, Noel Vanstein proved to be unexpectedly docile. He acknowledged that he was a little fatigued and turned back at once in obedience to the housekeeper's advice. Take my arm, sir. Take my arm on the other side, said Captain Rag, as they turned to retrace their steps. His party-colored eyes looked significantly at Magdalene while he spoke, and warned her not to stretch Mrs. LeCount's endurance too far at starting. She instantly understood him and, in spite of Noel Vanstein's reiterated assertions, that he stood in no need of the Captain's arm, placed herself at once by the housekeeper's side. Mrs. LeCount recovered her good humour and opened another conversation with Magdalene by making the one inquiry of all others, which, under existing circumstances, was the hardest to answer. I presume Mrs. Bygrave is too tired after her journey to come out today, said Mrs. LeCount. Shall we have the pleasure of seeing her tomorrow? Probably not, replied Magdalene. My aunt is in delicate health. A complicated case, my dear madam, added the Captain, conscious that Mrs. Rag's personal appearance, if she happened to be seen by accident, would offer the flattest of all possible contradictions to what Magdalene had just said of her. There is some remote nervous mischief, which doesn't express itself externally. You would think my wife the picture of health, if you looked at her, and yet so delusive are appearances. I am obliged to forbid her all excitement. She sees no society, our medical attendant, I regret to say, absolutely prohibits it. Very sad, said Mrs. LeCount. The poor lady must often feel lonely, sir, when you and your niece are away from her. No, replied the Captain. Mrs. Bygrave is a naturally domestic woman. When she is able to employ herself, she finds unlimited resources in her needle and thread. Having reached this stage of the explanation, and having purposely skirted, as it were, round the confines of truth, in the event of the housekeeper's curiosity leading her to make any private inquiries on the subject of Mrs. Rag, the Captain wisely checked his fluent tongue from carrying him into any further details. I have great hope from the air of this place, he remarked in conclusion. The iodine, as I have already observed, does wonders. Mrs. LeCount acknowledged the virtues of iodine in the briefest possible form of words, and withdrew into the innermost sanctuary of her own thoughts. Some mystery here, said the housekeeper to herself, a lady who looks the picture of health, a lady who suffers from a complicated nervous malady, and a lady whose hand is steady enough to use her needle and thread, is a living mass of contradictions I don't quite understand. Do you make a long stay at Aldbrusher, she added aloud, her eyes resting for a moment, in steady scrutiny on the Captain's face? It all depends, my dear madam, on Mrs. Bygrave. I trust we shall stay through the autumn. You are settled at Seaview Cottage, I presume, for the season? You must ask my master, sir. It is for him to decide, not for me. The answer was an unfortunate one. Noel Van Stone had been secretly annoyed by the change in the walking arrangements, which had separated him from Magdalene. He attributed that change to the meddling influence of Mrs. LeCount, and he now took the earliest opportunity of resenting it on the spot. I have nothing to do with our stay at Aldbrusher, he broke out peevishly. You know, as well as I do LeCount, it all depends on you. Mrs. LeCount has a brother in Switzerland, he went on, addressing himself to the Captain. A brother who is seriously ill, if he gets worse, she will have to go the re to see him. I can't accompany her, and I can't be left in the house by myself. I shall have to break up my establishment at Aldbrusher and stay with some friends. It all depends on you, LeCount, or on your brother, which comes to the same thing. If it depended on me, continued Mr. Noel Van Stone, looking pointedly at Magdalene across the housekeeper, I should stay at Aldbrusher all through the autumn with the greatest pleasure. With the greatest pleasure, he reiterated, repeating the words, with a tender look for Magdalene and a spiteful accent for Mrs. LeCount. Thus far Captain Ragh had remained silent, carefully noting in his mind the promising possibilities of a separation between Mrs. LeCount and her master, which Noel Van Stone's little fretful outburst had just disclosed to him. An ominous trembling in the housekeeper's thin lips as her master openly exposed her family affairs before strangers, and openly set her jealousy at defiance, now warned him to interfere. If the misunderstanding were permitted to proceed to extremities, there was a chance that the invitation for that evening to see View Cottage might be put off. Now, as ever, equal to the occasion, Captain Ragh called his useful information once more to the rescue. Under the learned auspices of joyce, he plunged, for the third time, into the ocean of science and brought up another pearl. He was still haranguing, on pneumatics this time, still improving Mrs. LeCount's mind with his politest perseverance and his smoothest flow of language when the walking party stopped at Noel Van Stone's door. Bless my soul, here we are at your house, sir, said the Captain, interrupting himself in the middle of one of his graphic sentences. I won't keep you standing a moment. Not a word of apology, Mrs. LeCount, I beg and pray. I will put that curious point in pneumatics more clearly before you on a future occasion. In the meantime, I need only repeat that you can perform the experiment I have just mentioned to your own entire satisfaction with a bladder, an exhausted receiver, and a square box. At seven o'clock this evening, sir, at seven o'clock, Mrs. LeCount? Now, we have had a remarkably pleasant walk and a most instructive interchange of ideas. Now, my dear girl, your aunt is waiting for us. While Mrs. LeCount stepped aside to open the garden gate, Noel Van Stone seized his opportunity and shot a last tender glance at Magdalene under shelter of the umbrella, which he had taken into his own hands for that express purpose. Don't forget, he said with the sweetest smile, don't forget when you come this evening to wear that charming hat. Before he could add any last words, Mrs. LeCount glided back to her place, and the sheltering umbrella changed hands again immediately. An excellent morning's work, said Captain Rag, as he and Magdalene walked on together to North Shingles. You and I and Joyce have all three done wonders. We have secured a friendly invitation at the first day's fishing for it. He paused for an answer, and, receiving none, observed Magdalene more attentively than he had observed her yet. Her face had turned deadly pale again. Her eyes looked out mechanically straight before her in heedless, reckless despair. What is the matter, he asked, with the greatest surprise. Are you ill? She made no reply. She hardly seemed to hear him. Are you getting alarmed about Mrs. LeCount? He inquired next. There is not the least reason for alarm. She may fancy she has heard something like your voice before, but your face evidently bewilders her. Keep your temper, and you keep her in the dark. Keep her in the dark, and you will put that two hundred pounds into my hands before the autumn is over. He waited again for an answer, and again she remained silent. The Captain tried for the third time in another direction. Did you get any letters this morning? He went on. Is there bad news again from home? Any fresh difficulties with your sister? Say nothing about my sister, she broke out passionately. Neither you nor I are fit to speak of her. She said those words at the garden gate and hurried into the house by herself. He followed her, and heard the door of her own room violently shut too, violently locked and double locked. Solacing his indignation by an oath, Captain Ragh sullenly went into one of the parlours on the ground floor to look after his wife. The room communicated with a smaller and darker room at the back of the house by means of a quaint little door with a window in the upper half of it. Softly approaching this door, the Captain lifted the white muslin curtain which hung over the window and looked into the inner room. There was Mrs. Ragh, with her cap on one side, and her shoes down at heel, with a row of pins between her teeth, with the oriental cashmere robe slowly slipping off the table, with her scissors suspended uncertain in one hand, and her written directions for dressmaking held doubtfully in the other. So absorbed over the invincible difficulties of her employment as to be perfectly unconscious that she was, at that moment, the object of her husband's superintending eye. Under other circumstances, she would have been soon brought to a sense of her situation by the sound of his voice. But Captain Ragh was too anxious about Magdalene to waste any time on his wife, after satisfying himself that she was safe in her seclusion, and that she might be trusted to remain there. He left the parlor, and after a little hesitation in the passage, stole upstairs and listened anxiously outside Magdalene's door. A dull sound of sobbing, a sound stifled in her handkerchief, or stifled in the bedclothes, was all that caught his ear. He returned at once to the ground floor, with some faint suspicion of the truth dawning on his mind at last. The devil take that sweet heart of hers, thought the Captain. Mr. Null Van Stone has raised the ghost of him at starting. GRIFFITS When Magdalene appeared in the parlor shortly before seven o'clock, not a trace of discomposure was visible in her manner. She looked and spoke as quietly and unconcernedly as usual. The louring distrust on Captain Ragh's face cleared away at the sight of her. There had been moments during the afternoon when he had seriously doubted whether the pleasure of satisfying the grudge he owed to Null Van Stone, and the prospect of earning the sum of two hundred pounds, would not be dearly purchased by running the risk of discovery to which Magdalene's uncertain temper might expose him at any hour of the day. The plain proof now before him, of her powers of self-control, relieved his mind of a serious anxiety. It mattered little to the Captain what she suffered in the privacy of her own chamber, as long as she came out of it with a face that would bear inspection, and a voice that betrayed nothing. On the way to Seaview Cottage, Captain Ragh expressed his intention of asking the housekeeper a few sympathizing questions on the subject of her invalid brother in Switzerland. He was of opinion that the critical condition of this gentleman's health might exercise an important influence on the future progress of the conspiracy. Any chance of a separation, he remarked, between the housekeeper and her master, was, under existing circumstances, a chance which merited the closest investigation. If we can only get Mrs. La Count out of the way at the right time, whispered the Captain, as he opened his host's garden gate, our man is caught. In a minutes more Magdalene was again under Noel Vanstone's roof, this time in the character of his own invited guest. The proceedings of the evening were, for the most part, a repetition of the proceedings during the morning walk. Noel Vanstone vibrated between his admiration of Magdalene's beauty and his glorification of his own possessions. Captain Ragh's inexhaustible outburst of information, relieved by delicately indirect inquiries relating to Mrs. La Count's brother, perpetually diverted the housekeeper's jealous vigilance from dwelling on the looks and language of her master. So the evening passed until ten o'clock. By that time the Captain's ready-made science was exhausted, and the housekeeper's temper was forcing its way to the surface. Once more Captain Ragh warned Magdalene by a look, and in spite of Noel Vanstone's hospitable protest, wisely rose to say good night. I've got my information, remarked the Captain on the way back. Mrs. La Count's brother lives at Zurich. He's a bachelor. He possesses a little money, and his sister is his nearest relation. If he will only be so obliging as to break up altogether, he will save us a world of trouble with Mrs. La Count. It was a fine moonlit night. He looked round at Magdalene, as he said those words, to see if her intractable depression of spirits had seized on her again. No, her variable humour had changed once more. She looked about her with a flaunting, feverish gaiety. She scoffed at the bare idea of any serious difficulty with Mrs. La Count. She mimicked Noel Vanstone's high-pitched voice, and repeated Noel Vanstone's high-flown compliments, with a bitter enjoyment of turning him into ridicule. Instead of running into the house as before, she sauntered carelessly by her companion's side, humming little snatches of song, and kicking the loose pebbles right and left on the garden walk. Captain Ragh hailed the change in her as the best of good omens. He thought he saw plain signs that the family spirit was at last coming back again. Well, he said, as he lit her bedroom candle for her. When we all meet on the parade tomorrow, we shall see, as our nautical friends say, how the land lies. One thing I can tell you, my dear girl, I have used my eyes to very little purpose if there is not a storm brewing tonight in Mr. Noel Vanstone's domestic atmosphere. The captain's habitual penetration had not misled him. As soon as the door of Seaview Cottage was closed on the parting guests, Mrs. LeCount made an effort to assert the authority which Magdalene's influence was threatening already. She employed every artifice of which she was mistress to ascertain Magdalene's true position in Noel Vanstone's estimation. She tried again and again to lure him into an unconscious confession of the pleasure which he felt already in the society of the beautiful Miss Bygrave. She twined herself in and out of every weakness in his character, as the frogs and efts twined themselves in and out of the rockwork of her aquarium. But she made one serious mistake which very clever people in their intercourse with their intellectual inferiors are almost universally apt to commit. She trusted implicitly to the folly of a fool. She forgot that one of the lowest of human qualities, cunning, is exactly the capacity which is often most largely developed in the lowest of intellectual natures. If she had been honestly angry with her master, she would probably have frightened him. If she had opened her mind plainly to his view, she would have astonished him by presenting a chain of ideas to his limited perceptions which they were not strong enough to grasp. His curiosity would have led him to ask for an explanation, and by practicing on that curiosity she might have had him at her mercy. As it was she set her cunning against his, and the fool proved a match for her. Noel Van Stone, to whom all large-minded motives under heaven were inscrutable mysteries, saw the small-minded motive at the bottom of his housekeeper's conduct with as instantaneous a penetration as if he had been a man of the highest ability. Mrs. LeCount left him for the night, foiled, and knowing she was foiled, left him with the tigress' side of her uppermost, and a low-lived longing in her elegant fingernails to set them in her master's face. She was not a woman to be beaten by one defeat or by a hundred. She was positively determined to think and think again until she had found a means of checking the growing intimacy with the by-graves at once and for ever. In the solitude of her own room she recovered her composure and set herself for the first time to review the conclusions which she had gathered from the events of the day. There was something vaguely familiar to her in the voice of this miss by-grave, and, at the same time, in unaccountable contradiction, something strange to her as well. The face and figure of the young lady were entirely new to her. It was a striking face and a striking figure, and if she had seen either, at any former period, she would certainly have remembered it. Miss Bygrave was unquestionably a stranger, and yet— She had got no further than this during the day, she could get no further now, the chain of thought broke. Her mind took up the fragments and formed another chain which attached itself to the lady who was kept in seclusion, to the aunt, who looked well and yet was nervous, who was nervous and yet able to ply her needle and thread. An incomprehensible resemblance to some unremembered voice in the niece, an unintelligible malady which kept the aunt secluded from public view. An extraordinary range of scientific cultivation in the uncle associated with a coarseness and audacity of manner which by no means suggested the idea of a man engaged in studious pursuits. Were the members of this small family of three, what they seemed, on the surface of them? With that question on her mind, she went to bed. As soon as the candle was out, the darkness seemed to communicate some inexplicable perversity to her thoughts. They wandered back from present things to past, in spite of her. They bought her old master back to life again. They revived forgotten sayings and doings in the English circle at Zurich. They veered away to the old man's deathbed at Brighton. They moved from Brighton to London. They entered the bare, comfortless room at Vauxhall Walk. They set the aquarium back in its place on the kitchen table, and put the false misgarth in the chair by the side of it, shading her inflamed eyes from the light. They placed the anonymous letter. The letter which glanced darklier to conspiracy in her hand again, and bought her with it into her master's presence. They recalled the discussion about filling in the blank space in the advertisement, and the quarrel that followed when she told Nell Van Stone that the sum he had offered was preposterously small. They revived an old doubt which had not troubled her for weeks past, a doubt whether the threatened conspiracy had evaporated in mere words, or whether she and her master were likely to hear of it again. At this point her thoughts broke off once more, and there was a momentary blank. The next instant she started up in bed, her heart beating violently, her head whirling as if she had lost her senses. With electric suddenness her mind pieced together its scattered multitude of thoughts, and put them before her plainly under one intelligible form. In the all-mastering agitation of the moment she clapped her hands together, and cried out suddenly in the darkness, Miss Van Stone again! She got out of bed and kindled the light once more. Steady as her nerves were, the shock of her own suspicion had shaken them. Her firm hand trembled as she opened her dressing-case, and took from it a little bottle of salvolatil. In spite of her smooth cheeks and her well-preserved hair, she looked every year of her age as she mixed the spirit with water, greedily drank it, and, wrapping her dressing-gown around her, sat down on the bedside to get possession again of her calm herself. She was quite incapable of tracing the mental process which had led her to discovery. She could not get sufficiently far from herself to see that her half-formed conclusions on the subject of the by-graves had ended in making that family objects of suspicion to her. That the association of ideas had thereupon carried her mind back to that other object of suspicion which was represented by the conspiracy against her master, and that the two ideas of those two separate subjects of distrust coming suddenly in contact had struck the light. She was not able to reason back in this way from the effect of the cause. She could only feel that the suspicion had become more than the suspicion already. Conviction itself could not have been more firmly rooted in her mind. Looking back at Magdalen by the new light now thrown on her, Mrs. LeCount would feign have persuaded herself that she recognized some traces left of the false misguards' face and figure in the graceful and beautiful girl who had sat at her master's table hardly an hour since, that she found resemblances now which she had never thought of before, between the angry voice she had heard in Vauxhall Walk and the smooth, well-bred tones which still hung on her ears after the evening's experience downstairs. She would feign have persuaded herself that she had reached these results with no undue straining of the truth that she really knew it, but the effort was in vain. Mrs. LeCount was not a woman to waste time and thought in trying to impose on herself. She accepted the inevitable conclusion that the guesswork of a moment had led her to discovery. And, more than that, she recognized the plain truth, unwelcome as it was, that the conviction now fixed in her own mind was thus far unsupported by a single fragment of producible evidence to justify it to the minds of others. Under these circumstances, what was the safe course to take with her master? If she candidly told him, when they met the next morning, what had passed through her mind that night, her knowledge of Nelvanstown warned her that one of two results would certainly happen. Either he would be angry and disputatious, would ask for proofs, and, finding evidence, for proofs, and finding none forthcoming, would accuse her of alarming him without a cause to serve her own jealous end of keeping Magdalen out of the house, or he would be seriously startled, would clamor for the protection of the law, and would warn the by-graves to stand on their defence at the outset. If Magdalen only had been concerned in the plot, this latter consequence would have assumed no great importance in the housekeeper's mind, but seeing the deception as she now saw it, she was far too clever a woman to fail in estimating the captain's inexhaustible fertility of resource at its true value. If I can't meet this impudent villain with plain proofs to help me, thought Mrs. La Count, I may open my master's eyes to-morrow morning, and Mr. Bygrave will shut them up again before night. The rascal is playing with all his own cards under the table, and he will win the game to a certainty if he sees my hand at starting. This policy of waiting was so manifestly the wise policy, the wily Mr. Bygrave was so sure to have provided himself in case of emergency, with evidence to prove the identity which he and his niece had assumed for their purpose, that Mrs. La Count had once decided to keep her own counsel the next morning, and to pause before attacking the conspiracy until she could produce unanswerable facts to help her. Her master's acquaintance with the Bygraves was only an acquaintance of one day's standing. There was no fear of its developing into a dangerous intimacy if she merely allowed it to continue for a few days more, and if she permanently checked it at the latest in a week's time. In that period, what measures could she take to remove the obstacles which now stood in her way, and to provide herself with the weapons which she now wanted? Reflection showed her three different chances in her favour, three different ways of arriving at the necessary discovery. The first chance was to cultivate friendly terms with Magdalen, and then, taking her unawares, to entrap her into betraying herself in Nell Vanstone's presence. The second chance was to write to the elder Miss Vanstone and to ask, with some alarming reason for putting the question, for information on the subject of her younger sister's whereabouts, and of any peculiarities in her personal appearance which might enable a stranger to identify her. The third chance was to penetrate the mystery of Mrs. Bygrave's seclusion, and to ascertain, at a personal interview, whether the invalid lady's real complaint might not possibly be a defective capacity for keeping her husband's secrets. Resolving to try all three chances, in the order in which they are here enumerated, and to set her snares for Magdalen, on the day that was now already at hand, Mrs. LeCount at last took off her dressing-gown, and allowed her weaker nature to plead with her, for a little sleep. The dawn was breaking over the cold grey sea as she lay down in her bed again. The last idea in her mind before she fell asleep was characteristic of the woman. It was an idea that threatened the captain. He has trifled with the sacred memory of my husband, thought the professor's widow. On my life and honour I will make him pay for it. Early the next morning Magdalen began the day, according to her agreement with the captain, by taking Mrs. Rag out for a little exercise, at an hour when there was no fear of her attracting the public attention. She pleaded hard to be left at home, having the oriental cashmere robe still on her mind, and feeling it necessary to read her directions for dressmaking, for the hundredth time at least, before, to use her own expression, she could screw up her courage to put the scissors into the stuff. But her companion would take no denial, and she was forced to go out. The one garless purpose of the life which Magdalen now led was the resolution that poor Mrs. Rag should not be made a prisoner on her account, and to that resolution she mechanically clung, as the last token left her by which she knew her better self. They returned later than usual to breakfast, while Mrs. Rag was upstairs, straightening herself from head to foot to meet the morning inspection of her husband's orderly eye, and while Magdalen and the captain were waiting for her in the parlour, the servant came in with a note from Seaview Cottage. The messenger was waiting for an answer, and the note was addressed to Captain Rag. The captain opened the note and read these lines. Dear sir, Mr. Noel Vanstone desires me to write, and tell you that he proposes enjoying this fine day by taking a long drive to a place on the coast here called Dunwich. He is anxious to know if you will share the expense of her carriage, and give him the pleasure of your company and Ms. Bygrave's company on this excursion. I am kindly permitted to be one of the party, and if I may say so, without impropriety, I would venture to add that I shall feel as much pleasure as my master if you and your young lady will consent to join us. We propose leaving Aldbra punctually at eleven o'clock. Believe me, dear sir, your humble servant, Virginie LeCount. Who is the letter from? asked Magdalen, noticing a change in Captain Rag's face as he read it. What do they want with us at Seaview Cottage? Pardon me, said the captain, gravely. This requires consideration. Let me have a minute or two to think. He took a few turns up and down the room, then suddenly stepped aside to a table in a corner, on which his writing materials were placed. I was not born yesterday, ma'am, said the captain, speaking jocosely to himself. He winked his brown eye, took up his pen, and wrote the answer. Can you speak now? inquired Magdalen when the servant had left the room. What does the letter say, and how have you answered it? The captain placed the letter in her hand. I have accepted the invitation, he replied quietly. Magdalen read the letter. Hidden enmity yesterday, she said, and open friendship today. What does it mean? It means, said Captain Rag, that Mrs. LeCount is even sharper than I thought her. She has found you out. Impossible, cried Magdalen, quite impossible in the time. I can't say how she has found you out, proceeded the captain, with perfect composure. She may know more of your voice than we supposed she knew. Or she may have thought us, on reflection, rather a suspicious family. And anything suspicious in which a woman was concerned may have taken her mind back to that morning call of yours in voxel walk. Whichever way it may be, the meaning of this sudden change is clear enough. She has found you out. And she wants to put her discovery to the proof by slipping in an awkward question or two, under cover of a little friendly talk. My experience of humanity has been a varied one, and Mrs. LeCount is not the first sharp practitioner in petticoats whom I have had to deal with. All the world's a stage, my dear girl, and one of the scenes on our little stage is shut in from this moment. With those words he took his copy of Joyce's scientific dialogues out of his pocket. You're done with already, my friend, said the captain, giving his useful information a farewell smack with his hand, and locking it up in the cupboard. Such his human popularity continued the indomitable vagabond, putting the key cheerfully in his pocket. Yesterday Joyce was my all-in-all. Today I don't care that for him. He snapped his fingers and sat down to breakfast. I don't understand you, said Magdalen, looking at him angrily. Are you leaving me to my own resources for the future? My dear girl, cried Captain Rag, can't you accustom yourself to my dash of humor yet? I have done with my ready-made science simply because I am quite sure that Mrs. LeCount has done believing in me. Haven't I accepted the invitation to done it? Make your mind easy. The help I have given you already counts for nothing, compared with the help I am going to give you now. My honour is concerned in bowling out Mrs. LeCount. This last move of hers has made it a personal matter between us. The woman actually thinks she can take me in, cried the captain, striking his knife handle on the table in a transport of virtuous indignation. By heavens, I never was so insulted before in my life. Draw your chair into the table, my dear, and give me half a minute's attention to what I have to say next. Magdalene obeyed him, Captain Rag cautiously lowered his voice before he went on. I have told you all along, he said, the one thing needful is never to let Mrs. LeCount catch you with your wit's wool gathering. I say the same after what has happened this morning. Let her suspect you. I defy her to find a fragment of foundation for her suspicions, unless we help her. We shall see today if she has been foolish enough to betray herself to her master before she has any facts to support her. I doubt it. If she has told him, we will rain down proofs of our identity with the by-graves on his feeble little head till it absolutely aches with conviction. You have two things to do on this excursion. First, to distrust every word Mrs. LeCount says to you. Secondly, to exert all your fascinations, and make sure of Mr. Nell Van Stone dating from today. I will give you the opportunity when we leave the carriage and take our walk at Dunwich. Wear your hat, wear your smile, do your figure justice, lace tight, put on your neatest boots and brightest gloves, tie the miserable little wretch to your apron string, tie him fast, and leave the whole management of the matter after that to me. Steady, here is Mrs. Ragh. We must be doubly careful in looking after her now. Show me your cap, Mrs. Ragh. Show me your shoes. What do I see on your apron? A spot? I won't have spots. Take it off after breakfast and put on another. Pull your chair to the middle of the table. More to the left, more still. Make the breakfast. At a quarter before eleven Mrs. Ragh, with her own entire concurrence, was dismissed to the back room, to bewilder herself over the science of dressmaking for the rest of the day. Punctually, as the clock struck the hour, Mrs. La Count and her master drove up to the Gate of North Shingles and found Magdalene and Captain Ragh waiting for them in the garden. On the way to Dunwich nothing occurred to disturb the enjoyment of the drive. Nell Van Stone was in excellent health and high good humour. La Count had apologised for the little misunderstanding of the previous night. La Count had petitioned for the excursion as a treat to herself. He thought of these concessions and looked at Magdalene and smirked and simpered without intermission. Mrs. La Count acted her part to perfection. She was motherly with Magdalene and tenderly attentive to Nell Van Stone. She was deeply interested in Captain Ragh's conversation and meekly disappointed to find a turn on general subjects to the exclusion of science. Not a word or look escaped her which hinted in the remotest degree at her real purpose. She was dressed with her customary elegance and propriety, and she was the only one of the party on that sultry summer's day who was perfectly cool in the hottest part of the journey. As they left the carriage on their arrival at Dunwich, the captain seized a moment when Mrs. La Count's eye was off him and fortified Magdalene by a last warning word. Where the cat, he whispered, she will show her claws on the way back. They left the village and walked to the ruins of a convent near at hand. The last relic of the once-popular city of Dunwich, which has survived the destruction of the place centra-since by the old devouring sea. After looking at the ruins, they sought the shade of a little wood between the village and the low sand hills which overlook the German ocean. Here Captain Rag maneuvered so as to let Magdalene and Noel Vanstone advance some distance in front of Mrs. La Count and himself. Took the wrong path and immediately lost his way with the most consummate dexterity. After a few minutes wandering in the wrong direction, he reached an open space near the sea and politely opened in his camp stall for the housekeeper's accommodation, proposed waiting where they were until the missing members of the party came that way and discovered them. Mrs. La Count accepted the proposal. She was perfectly well aware that her escort had lost himself on purpose, but that discovery exercised no disturbing influence on the smooth amiability of her manner. Her day of reckoning with the captain had not come yet. She merely added the new item to her list and availed herself of the camp stall. Captain Rag stretched himself in a romantic attitude at her feet, and the two determined enemies, grouped like two lovers in a picture, fell into as easy and pleasant a conversation as if they'd been friends of twenty years standing. I know you, ma'am, thought the captain, while Mrs. La Count was talking to him, you would like to catch me tripping in my ready-made science, and you wouldn't object to drown me in the professor's tank. You villain with the brown eye and the green, thought Mrs. La Count as the captain caught the ball of conversation in his turn, thick as your skin is, I'll sting you through it yet. In this frame of mind toward each other, they talked fluently on general subjects, on public affairs, on local scenery, on society in England and society in Switzerland, on health, climate, books, marriage, and money, talked without a moment's pause, without a single misunderstanding, on either side for nearly an hour, before Magdalene and Nolvann Stone strayed that way and made the party of four complete again. When they reached the inn at which the carriage was waiting for them, Captain Rag left Mrs. La Count in undisturbed possession of her master, and signed to Magdalene to drop back for a moment and speak to him. Well, asked the captain in a whisper, is he fast to your apron string? She shuddered from head to foot as she answered. He has kissed my hand, she said. Does that tell you enough? Don't let him sit next to me on the way home. I have borne all I can bear, spare me for the rest of the day. I'll put you on the front seat of the carriage," replied the captain, side by side with me. On the journey back Mrs. La Count verified Captain Rag's prediction. She showed her claws. The time could not have been better chosen. The circumstances could hardly have favoured her more. Magdalene's spirits were depressed, she was weary in body and mind, and she sat exactly opposite the housekeeper, who had been compelled by the new arrangement to occupy the seat of honour next to her master. With every facility for observing the slightest changes that passed over Magdalene's face, Mrs. La Count tried her first experiment by leading the conversation to the subject of London, and to the relative advantages offered to residents by the various quarters of the metropolis on both sides of the river. The ever-ready rag penetrated her intentions sooner than she had anticipated, and interposed immediately. You're coming to Vauxhall Walk, ma'am, thought the captain. I'll get there before you. He entered at once into a purely fictitious description of the various quarters of London in which he had himself resided, and adroitly mentioning Vauxhall Walk as one of them, saved Magdalene from the sudden question relating to that very locality with which Mrs. La Count had proposed startling her to begin with. From his residences he passed smoothly to himself, and poured his whole family history in the character of Mr. Bygrave into the housekeeper's ears, not forgetting his brother's grave in Honduras, with the monument by the self-taught Negro artist, and his brother's hugely corpulent widow, on the ground floor of the boarding-house at Cheltenham. As a means of giving Magdalene time to compose herself, this outburst of autobiographical information attained its object, but it answered no other purpose. Mrs. La Count listened without being imposed on by a single word the captain said to her. He merely confirmed her conviction of the hopelessness of taking Nelvan Stone into her confidence before she had faxed to help her against Captain Ragh's otherwise unassailable position in the identity which he had assumed. She quietly waited until he had done, and then returned to the charge. It is a coincidence that your uncle should have once resided in Vauxhall Walk, she said, addressing herself to Magdalene. Mr. Nelval has a house in the same place, and we lived there before we came to Albre. May I inquire, Miss Bygrave, whether you know anything of a lady named Miss Garth? This time she put the question before the captain could interfere. Magdalene ought to have been prepared for it by what had already passed in her presence, but her nerves had been shaken by the earlier events of the day, and she could only answer the question in the negative, after an instant's preliminary pause to control herself. Her hesitation was of two momentary unnatured to attract the attention of any unsuspicious person, but it lasted long enough to confirm Mrs. La Count's private convictions, and to encourage her to advance a little further. I only asked, she continued, steadily fixing her eyes on Magdalene, steadily disregarding the efforts which Captain Rag made to join in the conversation, because Miss Garth is a stranger to me, and I am curious to find out what I can about her. The day before we left town, Miss Bygrave, a person who presented herself under the name I have mentioned, paid us a visit under very extraordinary circumstances. With a smooth ingratiating manner, with a refinement of contempt, which was little less than devilish in its ingenious assumption of the language of pity, she now boldly described Magdalene's appearance in disguise in Magdalene's own presence. She slightingly referred to the master and mistress of Coombe Raven, as persons who had always annoyed the elder a more respectable branch of the family. She mourned over the children as following their parents' example, and attempting to take a mercenary advantage of Mr. Noel Vanstow, under the protection of a respectable person's character and a respectable person's name. Cleverly including her master in the conversation, so as to prevent the captain from effecting a diversion in that quarter, sparing no petty aggravation, striking at every tender place which the tongue of a spiteful woman can wound, she would beyond all doubt have carried her point, and tortured Magdalene into openly betraying herself, if Captain Ragh had not checked her in full career by a loud exclamation of alarm and a sudden clutch at Magdalene's wrist. Ten thousand pardons, my dear madam, cried the captain. I see in my niece's face, I feel in my niece's pulse that one of her violent neurologic attacks has come on again. My dear girl, why hesitate among friends to confess that you are in pain? What mistime to polite-ness. Her face shows she is suffering, doesn't it, Mrs. LeCount? Darting pains, Mr. Vanstow, darting pains on the left side of the head. Pull down your veil, my dear, and lean on me. Our friends will excuse you. Our excellent friends will excuse you for the rest of the day. Before Mrs. LeCount could throw an instant's doubt on the genuineness of the neurologic attack, her master's fidgety sympathy declared itself exactly as the captain had anticipated, in the most active manifestations. He stopped the carriage and insisted on an immediate change in the arrangement of the places. The comfortable back seat for Miss Bygrave and her uncle, the front seat for LeCount and himself. Had LeCount got her smelling bottle? Excellent creature. Let her give it directly to Miss Bygrave, and let the coachman drive carefully. If the coachman shook Miss Bygrave, he should not have a half-punny for himself. Mesmerism was frequently useful in these cases. Mr. Noel Vanstow's father had been the most powerful mesmerist in Europe, and Mr. Noel Vanstow was his father's son. Might he mesmerise? Might he order that infernal coachman to draw up in a shady place adapted for the purpose? Would medical help be preferred? Could medical help be found any nearer than Oldborough? That arse of a coachman didn't know. Stop every respectable man who passed in a jig, and ask him if he was a doctor. So Mr. Noel Vanstow ran on, with brief intervals for breathing time, in a continually ascending scale of sympathy and self-importance throughout the drive home. Mrs. LeCount accepted her defeat without uttering a word. From the moment when Captain Rag interrupted her, her thin lips closed, and opened no more for the remainder of the journey. The warmest expressions of her master's anxiety for the suffering young lady provoked from her no outward manifestations of anger. She took as little notice of him as possible. She paid no attention whatever to the Captain, whose exasperating consideration for his vanquished enemy made him more polite to her than ever. The nearer and the nearer they got to Oldborough, the more and more fixedly Mrs. LeCount's hard black eyes looked at Magdalen, reclining on the opposite seat, with her eyes closed and her veil down. It was only when the carriage stopped at North Shingles, and when Captain Rag was handing Magdalen out, that the housekeeper at last condescended to notice him. As he smiled and took off his hat at the carriage door, the strong restraint she had laid on herself suddenly gave way, and she flashed one look at him, which scorched up the Captain's politeness on the spot. He turned at once, with a hasty acknowledgement of Noel Vanstone's last sympathetic inquiries, and took Magdalen into the house. I told you she would show her claws, he said. It is not my fault that she scratched you before I could stop her. She hasn't hurt you, has she? She has hurt me to some purpose, said Magdalen. She has given me the courage to go on. Say what must be done tomorrow and trust me to do it. She sighed heavily as she said these words and went up to her room. Captain Rag walked meditatively into the parlour, and sat down to consider. He felt by no means so certain as he could have wished of the next proceeding on the part of the enemy after the defeat of that day. The housekeeper's farewell look had plainly informed him that she was not at the end of her resources yet, and the old militia man felt the full importance of preparing himself in good time to meet the next step which she took in advance. He lit a cigar and bent his wary mind on the dangers of the future. While Captain Rag was considering in the parlour at North Shingles, Mrs. LeCount was meditating in her bedroom at sea view. Her exasperation at the failure of her first attempt to expose the conspiracy had not blinded her to the instant necessity of making a second effort before Neil Vanstone's growing infatuation got beyond her control. The snare set for Magdalene having failed, the chance of entrapping Magdalene's sister, was the next chance to try. Mrs. LeCount ordered a cup of tea, opened her writing case, and began the rough draft of a letter to be sent to Ms. Vanstone, the elder, by the morrow's post. So the day skirmish ended, the heat of the battle was yet to come.