, I will show Miss Garth she is
mistaken! It is high time, Captain Wragge, to have done with these
wretched risks of discovery. We will take the short way to the end we
have in view sooner than Mrs. Lecount or Miss Garth think for. How
long can you give me to wring an offer of marriage out of that creature
downstairs?"

"I dare not give you long," replied Captain Wragge. "Now your friends
know where you are, they may come down on us at a day's notice. Could
you manage it in a week?"

"I'll manage it in half the time," she said, with a hard, defiant laugh.
"Leave us together this morning as you left us at Dunwich, and take Mrs.
Wragge with you, as an excuse for parting company. Is the paint dry yet?
Go downstairs and tell him I am coming directly."

So, for the second time, Miss Garth's well-meant efforts defeated their
own end. So the fatal force of circumstance turned the hand that would
fain have held Magdalen back into the hand that drove her on.

The captain returned to his visitor in the parlor, after first stopping
on his way to issue his orders for the walking excursion to Mrs. Wragge.

"I am shocked to have kept you waiting," he said, sitting down again
confidentially by Noel Vanstone's side. "My only excuse is, that my
niece had accidentally dressed her hair so as to defeat our object. I
have been persuading her to alter it, and young ladies are apt to be a
little obstinate on questions relating to their toilet. Give her a chair
on that side of you when she comes in, and take your look at her neck
comfortably before we start for our walk."

Magdalen entered the room as he said those words, and after the first
greetings were exchanged, took the chair presented to her with the most
unsuspicious readiness. Noel Vanstone applied the Crucial Test on the
spot, with the highest appreciation of the fair material which was the
subject of experiment. Not the vestige of a mole was visible on any part
of the smooth white surface of Miss Bygrave's neck. It mutely answered
the blinking inquiry of Noel Vanstone's half-closed eyes by the flattest
practical contradiction of Mrs. Lecount. That one central incident in
the events of the morning was of all the incidents that had hitherto
occurred, the most important in its results. That one discovery shook
the housekeeper's hold on her master as nothing had shaken it yet.

In a few minutes Mrs. Wragge made her appearance, and excited as much
surprise in Noel Vanstone's mind