is the conspiracy which has
made her your wife. That is the plain truth. You have seen the dress
upstairs. If that dress had been no longer in existence, I should still
have had my proofs to convince you. Thanks to my interview with Mrs.
Bygrave I have discovered the house your wife lodged at in London; it
was opposite our house in Vauxhall Walk. I have laid my hand on one of
the landlady's daughters, who watched your wife from an inner room, and
saw her put on the disguise; who can speak to her identity, and to the
identity of her companion, Mrs. Bygrave; and who has furnished me, at
my own request, with a written statement of facts, which she is ready to
affirm on oath if any person ventures to contradict her. You shall read
the statement, Mr. Noel, if you like, when you are fitter to understand
it. You shall also read a letter in the handwriting of Miss Garth--who
will repeat to you personally every word she has written to me--a
letter formally denying that she was ever in Vauxhall Walk, and formally
asserting that those moles on your wife's neck are marks peculiar to
Miss Magdalen Vanstone, whom she has known from childhood. I say it with
a just pride--you will find no weak place anywhere in the evidence which
I bring you. If Mr. Bygrave had not stolen my letter, you would have had
your warning before I was cruelly deceived into going to Zurich; and the
proofs which I now bring you, after your marriage, I should then have
offered to you before it. Don't hold me responsible, sir, for what has
happened since I left England. Blame your uncle's bastard daughter, and
blame that villain with the brown eye and the green!"

She spoke her last venomous words as slowly and distinctly as she had
spoken all the rest. Noel Vanstone made no answer--he still sat cowering
over the fire. She looked round into his face. He was crying silently.
"I was so fond of her!" said the miserable little creature; "and I
thought she was so fond of Me!"

Mrs. Lecount turned her back on him in disdainful silence. "Fond of
her!" As she repeated those words to herself, her haggard face became
almost handsome again in the magnificent intensity of its contempt.

She walked to a book-case at the lower end of the room, and began
examining the volumes in it. Before she had been long engaged in this
way, she was startled by the sound of his voice, affrightedly calling
her back. The tears were gone from his face; it was blank again with
terror when he no