them at her in a frenzy of rage and
suspense. "Five thousand" was the death-cry of his pecuniary suicide.

Mrs. Lecount softly shut the door again, and came back a step.

"Free of legacy duty, sir?" she inquired.

"No."

Mrs. Lecount turned on her heel and opened the door again.

"Yes."

Mrs. Lecount came back, and resumed her place at the table as if nothing
had happened.

"Five thousand pounds, free of legacy duty, was the sum, sir, which your
father's grateful regard promised me in his will," she said, quietly.
"If you choose to exert your memory, as you have not chosen to exert
it yet, your memory will tell you that I speak the truth. I accept your
filial performance of your father's promise, Mr. Noel--and there I stop.
I scorn to take a mean advantage of my position toward you; I scorn
to grasp anything from your fears. You are protected by my respect for
myself, and for the Illustrious Name I bear. You are welcome to all that
I have done, and to all that I have suffered in your service. The widow
of Professor Lecompte, sir, takes what is justly hers--and takes no
more!"

As she spoke those words, the traces of sickness seemed, for the moment,
to disappear from her face; her eyes shone with a steady inner
light; all the woman warmed and brightened in the radiance of her own
triumph--the triumph, trebly won, of carrying her point, of vindicating
her integrity, and of matching Magdalen's incorruptible self-denial on
Magdalen's own ground.

"When you are yourself again, sir, we will proceed. Let us wait a little
first."

She gave him time to compose himself; and then, after first looking at
her Draft, dictated the second paragraph of the will, in these terms:

"I give and bequeath to Madame Virginie Lecompte (widow of Professor
Lecompt e, late of Zurich) the sum of Five Thousand Pounds, free of
Legacy Duty. And, in making this bequest, I wi sh to place it on
record that I am not only expressing my own sense of Madame Lecompte's
attachment and fidelity in the capacity of my housekeeper, but that
I also believe myself to be executing the intentions of my deceased
father, who, but for the circumstance of his dying intestate, would have
left Madame Lecompte, in _his_ will, the same token of grateful regard
for her services which I now leave her in mine."

"Have you written the last words, sir?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Lecount leaned across the table and offered Noel Vanstone her hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Noel,"