by the immovable scrutiny of
Captain Wragge's inquiring eye, Noel Vanstone was not long in making his
choice. He confusedly described his singular interview of the previous
evening with Mrs. Lecount, and, taking the folded paper from his pocket,
placed it in the captain's hand.

A suspicion of the truth dawned on Captain Wragge's mind the moment he
saw the mysterious note. He withdrew to the window before he opened it.
The first lines that attracted his attention were these: "Oblige me, Mr.
Noel, by comparing the young lady who is now in your company with the
personal description which follows these lines, and which has been
communicated to me by a friend. You shall know the name of the person
described--which I have left a blank--as soon as the evidence of your
own eyes has forced you to believe what you would refuse to credit on
the unsupported testimony of Virginie Lecount."

That was enough for the captain. Before he had read a word of the
description itself, he knew what Mrs. Lecount had done, and felt, with
a profound sense of humiliation, that his female enemy had taken him by
surprise.

There was no time to think; the whole enterprise was threatened with
irrevocable overthrow. The one resource in Captain Wragge's present
situation was to act instantly on the first impulse of his own audacity.
Line by line he read on, and still the ready inventiveness which had
never deserted him yet failed to answer the call made on it now. He
came to the closing sentence--to the last words which mentioned the
two little moles on Magdalen's neck. At that crowning point of the
description, an idea crossed his mind; his party-colored eyes twinkled;
his curly lips twisted up at the corners; Wragge was himself again.
He wheeled round suddenly from the window, and looked Noel Vanstone
straight in the face with a grimly-quiet suggestiveness of something
serious to come.

"Pray, sir, do you happen to know anything of Mrs. Lecount's family?" he
inquired.

"A respectable family," said Noel Vanstone--"that's all I know. Why do
you ask?"

"I am not usually a betting man," pursued Captain Wragge. "But on this
occasion I will lay you any wager you like there is madness in your
housekeeper's family."

"Madness!" repeated Noel Vanstone, amazedly

"Madness!" reiterated the captain, sternly tapping the note with his
forefinger. "I see the cunning of insanity, the suspicion of insanity,
the feline treachery of insanity in every line o