ies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him."

"Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain,
slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her
face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?"

"As your niece, Miss Bygrave."

"And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the
question, and he left it unfinished.

"After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of
your assistance."

The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her,
and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some
paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have
seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For
the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed
color. He was deadly pale.

"Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting
to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our
expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take
a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me
your assistance on those conditions?"

"What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and
a sudden distrust in his voice.

"You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she
answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's
from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my
responsibility--not yours."

"I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any
place--after the marriage?"

"Nothing whatever."

"I may leave you at the church door if I please?"

"At the church door, with your fee in your pocket."

"Paid from the money in your own possession?"

"Certainly! How else should I pay it?"

Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his
face with an air of relief.

"Give me a minute to consider it," he said.

"As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in
her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing
up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air.

The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary
divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the
contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the
injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an
injury which had severe