ave been soon brought to a sense of her
situation by the sound of his voice. But Captain Wragge was too anxious
about Magdalen to waste any time on his wife, after satisfying himself
that she was safe in her seclusion, and that she might be trusted to
remain there.

He left the parlor, and, after a little hesitation in the passage, stole
upstairs and listened anxiously outside Magdalen's door. A dull sound
of sobbing--a sound stifled in her handkerchief, or stifled in the
bed-clothes--was all that caught his ear. He returned at once to the
ground-floor, with some faint suspicion of the truth dawning on his mind
at last.

"The devil take that sweetheart of hers!" thought the captain. "Mr. Noel
Vanstone has raised the ghost of him at starting."

CHAPTER V.

WHEN Magdalen appeared in the parlor shortly before seven o'clock, not a
trace of discomposure was visible in her manner. She looked and spoke as
quietly and unconcernedly as usual.

The lowering distrust on Captain Wragge's face cleared away at the
sight of her. There had been moments during the afternoon when he had
seriously doubted whether the pleasure of satisfying the grudge he owed
to Noel Vanstone, and the prospect of earning the sum of two hundred
pounds, would not be dearly purchased by running the risk of discovery
to which Magdalen's uncertain temper might expose him at any hour of
the day. The plain proof now before him of her powers of self-control
relieved his mind of a serious anxiety. It mattered little to the
captain what she suffered in the privacy of her own chamber, as long as
she came out of it with a face that would bear inspection, and a voice
that betrayed nothing.

On the way to Sea-view Cottage, Captain Wragge expressed his intention
of asking the housekeeper a few sympathizing questions on the subject of
her invalid brother in Switzerland. He was of opinion that the critical
condition of this gentleman's health might exercise an important
influence on the future progress of the conspiracy. Any chance of a
separation, he remarked, between the housekeeper and her master was,
under existing circumstances, a chance which merited the closest
investigation. "If we can only get Mrs. Lecount out of the way at the
right time," whispered the captain, as he opened his host's garden gate,
"our man is caught!"

In a minute more Magdalen was again under Noel Vanstone's roof; this
time in the character of his own invited guest.

The procee