ginning
to end, by yourself. I suggest, Mr. Noel--and you decide. Recognize
your own position, sir. What is your first and foremost necessity? It
is plainly this. You must destroy your wife's interest in your death by
making another will."

He vehemently nodded his approval; his color rose, and his blinking eyes
brightened in malicious triumph. "She shan't have a farthing," he said
to himself, in a whisper--"she shan't have a farthing!"

"When your will is made, sir," proceeded Mrs. Lecount, "you must place
it in the hands of a trustworthy person--not my hands, Mr. Noel; I am
only your servant! Then, when the will is safe, and when you are safe,
write to your wife at this house. Tell her her infamous imposture
is discovered; tell her you have made a new will, which leaves her
penniless at your death; tell her, in your righteous indignation, that
she enters your doors no more. Place yourself in that strong position,
and it is no longer you who are at your wife's mercy, but your wife who
is at yours. Assert your own power, sir, with the law to help you, and
crush this woman into submission to any terms for the future that you
please to impose."

He eagerly took up the pen. "Yes," he said, with a vindictive
self-importance, "any terms I please to impose." He suddenly checked
himself and his face became dejected and perplexed. "How can I do it
now?" he asked, throwing down the pen as quickly as he had taken it up.

"Do what, sir?" inquired Mrs. Lecount.

"How can I make my will, with Mr. Loscombe away in London, and no lawyer
here to help me?"

Mrs. Lecount gently tapped the papers before her on the table with her
forefinger.

"All the help you need, sir, is waiting for you here," she said. "I
considered this matter carefully before I came to you; and I provided
myself with the confidential assistance of a friend to guide me through
those difficulties which I could not penetrate for myself. The friend
to whom I refer is a gentleman of Swiss extraction, but born and bred
in England. He is not a lawyer by profession--but he has had his own
sufficient experience of the law, nevertheless; and he has supplied
me, not only with a model by which you may make your will, but with the
written sketch of a letter which it is as important for us to have, as
the model of the will itself. There is another necessity waiting for
you, Mr. Noel, which I have not mentioned yet, but which is no less
urgent in its way than the necessity