ble yourself to explain," said Captain Wragge, coming to
the rescue. "This is the common story, Mr. Vanstone. Here is a woman who
has grown old in your service, and in your father's service before you;
a woman who has contrived, in all sorts of small, underhand ways, to
presume systematically on her position for years and years past; a
woman, in short, whom your inconsiderate but perfectly natural kindness
has allowed to claim a right of property in you--"

"Property!" cried Noel Vanstone, mistaking the captain, and letting
the truth escape him through sheer inability to conceal his fears any
longer. "I don't know what amount of property she won't claim. She'll
make me pay for my father as well as for myself. Thousands, Mr.
Bygrave--thousands of pounds sterling out of my pocket!!!" He clasped
his hands in despair at the picture of pecuniary compulsion which his
fancy had conjured up--his own golden life-blood spouting from him in
great jets of prodigality, under the lancet of Mrs. Lecount.

"Gently, Mr. Vanstone--gently! The woman knows nothing so far, and the
money is not gone yet."

"No, no; the money is not gone, as you say. I'm only nervous about it;
I can't help being nervous. You were saying something just now; you were
going to give me advice. I value your advice; you don't know how highly
I value your advice." He said those words with a conciliatory smile
which was more than helpless; it was absolutely servile in its
dependence on his judicious friend.

"I was only assuring you, my dear sir, that I understood your position,"
said the captain. "I see your difficulty as plainly as you can see it
yourself. Tell a woman like Mrs. Lecount that she must come off her
domestic throne, to make way for a young and beautiful successor,
armed with the authority of a wife, and an unpleasant scene must be the
inevitable result. An unpleasant scene, Mr. Vanstone, if your opinion of
your housekeeper's sanity is well founded. Something far more serious,
if my opinion that her intellect is unsettled happens to turn out the
right one."

"I don't say it isn't my opinion, too," rejoined Noel Vanstone.
"Especially after what has happened to-day."

Captain Wragge immediately begged to know what the event alluded to
might be.

Noel Vanstone thereupon explained--with an infinite number of
parentheses all referring to himself--that Mrs. Lecount had put the
dreaded question relating to the little note in her master's pocket
barel