id, coaxingly. "You would
have heard from me before long. Upon my word and honor, Lecount, you
would have heard from me before long!"

"I don't doubt it, sir," replied Mrs. Lecount. "But for the present,
never mind about Me. You and your interests first."

"How did you come here?" he asked, looking at her in astonishment. "How
came you to find me out?"

"It is a long story, sir; I will tell it you some other time. Let it be
enough to say now that I _have_ found you. Will Mrs. Noel be back again
at the house to-day? A little louder, sir; I can hardly hear you. So!
so! Not back again for a week! And where has she gone? To London, did
you say? And what for?--I am not inquisitive, Mr. Noel; I am asking
serious questions, under serious necessity. Why has your wife left you
here, and gone to London by herself?"

They were down at the fence again as she made that last inquiry, and
they waited, leaning against it, while Noel Vanstone answered. Her
reiterated assurances that she bore him no malice were producing their
effect; he was beginning to recover himself. The old helpless habit of
addressing all his complaints to his housekeeper was returning already
with the re-appearance of Mrs. Lecount--returning insidiously, in
company with that besetting anxiety to talk about his grievances, which
had got the better of him at the breakfast-table, and which had shown
the wound inflicted on his vanity to his wife's maid.

"I can't answer for Mrs. Noel Vanstone," he said, spitefully. "Mrs. Noel
Vanstone has not treated me with the consideration which is my due. She
has taken my permission for granted, and she has only thought proper to
tell me that the object of her journey is to see her friends in London.
She went away this morning without bidding me good-by. She takes her own
way as if I was nobody; she treats me like a child. You may not believe
it, Lecount, but I don't even know who her friends are. I am left quite
in the dark; I am left to guess for myself that her friends in London
are her uncle and aunt."

Mrs. Lecount privately considered the question by the help of her own
knowledge obtained in London. She soon reached the obvious conclusion.
After writing to her sister in the first instance, Magdalen had now, in
all probability, followed the letter in person. There was little doubt
that the friends she had gone to visit in London were her sister and
Miss Garth.

"Not her uncle and aunt, sir," resumed Mrs. Lecount, comp