heart of a worn-out old man.

"Are you relieved, sir?" asked Mrs. Lecount. "Can you think a little?
Can you exercise your better judgment?"

She rose and put her hand over his heart with as much mechanical
attention and as little genuine interest as if she had been feeling the
plates at dinner to ascertain if they had been properly warmed. "Yes,"
she went on, seating herself again, and resuming the exercise of the
fan; "you are getting better already, Mr. Noel.--Don't ask me about this
anonymous letter until you have thought for yourself, and have given
your own opinion first." She went on with the fanning, and looked him
hard in the face all the time. "Think," she said; "think, sir, without
troubling yourself to express your thoughts. Trust to my intimate
sympathy with you to read them. Yes, Mr. Noel, this letter is a paltry
attempt to frighten you. What does it say? It says you are the object of
a conspiracy directed by Miss Vanstone. We know that already--the lady
of the inflamed eyes has told us. We snap our fingers at the conspiracy.
What does the letter say next? It says the writer has valuable
information to give you if you will pay for it. What did you call this
person yourself just now, sir?"

"I called him a scoundrel," said Noel Vanstone, recovering his
self-importance, and raising himself gradually in his chair.

"I agree with you in that, sir, as I agree in everything else,"
proceeded Mrs. Lecount. "He is a scoundrel who really has this
information and who means what he says, or he is a mouthpiece of Miss
Vanstone's, and she has caused this letter to be written for the purpose
of puzzling us by another form of disguise. Whether the letter is true,
or whether the letter is false--am I not reading your own wiser thoughts
now, Mr. Noel?--you know better than to put your enemies on their guard
by employing the police in this matter too soon. I quite agree with
you--no police just yet. You will allow this anonymous man, or anonymous
woman, to suppose you are easily frightened; you will lay a trap for the
information in return for the trap laid for your money; you will answer
the letter, and see what comes of the answer; and you will only pay the
expense of employing the police when you know the expense is necessary.
I agree with you again--no expense, if we can help it. In every
particular, Mr. Noel, my mind and your mind in this matter are one."

"It strikes you in that light, Lecount--does it?" said Noel