h the Eastern Counties
Railway. He reached the principal inn as the coach drove up, and was
ready at the door to receive Magdalen and Mrs. Wragge, on their leaving
the vehicle.

The captain's reception of his wife was not characterized by an
instant's unnecessary waste of time. He looked distrustfully at her
shoes--raised himself on tiptoe--set her bonnet straight for her with a
sharp tug---said, in a loud whisper, "hold your tongue"--and left her,
for the time being, without further notice. His welcome to Magdalen,
beginning with the usual flow of words, stopped suddenly in the middle
of the first sentence. Captain Wragge's eye was a sharp one, and it
instantly showed him something in the look and manner of his old pupil
which denoted a serious change.

There was a settled composure on her face which, except when she spoke,
made it look as still and cold as marble. Her voice was softer and more
equable, her eyes were steadier, her step was slower than of old.
When she smiled, the smile came and went suddenly, and showed a little
nervous contraction on one side of her mouth never visible there before.
She was perfectly patient with Mrs. Wragge; she treated the captain with
a courtesy and consideration entirely new in his experience of her--but
she was interested in nothing. The curious little shops in the back
street; the high impending sea; the old town-hall on the beach; the
pilots, the fishermen, the passing ships--she noticed all these objects
as indifferently as if Aldborough had been familiar to her from her
infancy. Even when the captain drew up at the garden-gate of North
Shingles, and introduced her triumphantly to the new house, she hardly
looked at it. The first question she asked related not to her own
residence, but to Noel Vanstone's.

"How near to us does he live?" she inquired, with the only betrayal of
emotion which had escaped her yet.

Captain Wragge answered by pointing to the fifth villa from North
Shingles, on the Slaughden side of Aldborough. Magdalen suddenly drew
back from the garden-gate as he indicated the situation, and walked away
by herself to obtain a nearer view of the house. Captain Wragge looked
after her, and shook his head, discontentedly.

"May I speak now?" inquired a meek voice behind him, articulating
respectfully ten inches above the top of his straw hat.

The captain turned round, and confronted his wife. The more than
ordinary bewilderment visible in her face at once sug