ough the medium of
a heavy sigh. The cook looked away from Mrs. Lecount with an
effort--signed her name in a violent hurry--and looked back again with
a start, as if she expected to see a loaded pistol (produced in the
interval) in the housekeeper's hands. "Thank you," said Mrs. Lecount,
in her friendliest manner. The cook shut up her lips aggressively and
looked at her master. "You may go!" said her master. The cook coughed
contemptuously, and went.

"We shan't keep you long," said Mrs. Lecount, dismissing the coachman.
"In half an hour, or less, we shall be ready for the journey back."

The coachman's austere countenance relaxed for the first time. He smiled
mysteriously, and approached Mrs. Lecount on tiptoe.

"Ye'll no forget one thing, my leddy," he said, with the most
ingratiating politeness. "Ye'll no forget the witnessing as weel as the
driving, when ye pay me for my day's wark!" He laughed with guttural
gravity; and, leaving his atmosphere behind him, stalked out of the
room.

"Lecount," said Noel Vanstone, as soon as the coachman closed the door,
"did I hear you tell that man we should be ready in half an hour?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you blind?"

He asked the question with an angry stamp of his foot. Mrs. Lecount
looked at him in astonishment.

"Can't you see the brute is drunk?" he went on, more and more irritably.
"Is my life nothing? Am I to be left at the mercy of a drunken coachman?
I won't trust that man to drive me, for any consideration under heaven!
I'm surprised you could think of it, Lecount."

"The man has been drinking, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "It is easy to see
and to smell that. But he is evidently used to drinking. If he is sober
enough to walk quite straight--which he certainly does--and to sign his
name in an excellent handwriting--which you may see for yourself on the
Will--I venture to think he is sober enough to drive us to Dumfries."

"Nothing of the sort! You're a foreigner, Lecount; you don't understand
these people. They drink whisky from morning to night. Whisky is the
strongest spirit that's made; whisky is notorious for its effect on the
brain. I tell you, I won't run the risk. I never was driven, and I never
will be driven, by anybody but a sober man."

"Must I go back to Dumfries by myself, sir?"

"And leave me here? Leave me alone in this house after what has
happened? How do I know my wife may not come back to-night? How do I
know her journey is not a blind to misle