y an hour since. He had answered her inquiry as Mr. Bygrave had
advised him. On hearing that the accuracy of the personal description
had been fairly put to the test, and had failed in the one important
particular of the moles on the neck, Mrs. Lecount had considered a
little, and had then asked him whether he had shown her note to
Mr. Bygrave before the experiment was tried. He had answered in the
negative, as the only safe form of reply that he could think of on the
spur of the moment, and the housekeeper had then addressed him in these
strange and startling words: "You are keeping the truth from me, Mr.
Noel. You are trusting strangers, and doubting your old servant and your
old friend. Every time you go to Mr. Bygrave's house, every time you
see Miss Bygrave, you are drawing nearer and nearer to your destruction.
They have got the bandage over your eyes in spite of me; but I tell
them, and tell you, before many days are over I will take it off!" To
this extraordinary outbreak--accompanied as it was by an expression in
Mrs. Lecount's face which he had never seen there before--Noel Vanstone
had made no reply. Mr. Bygrave's conviction that there was a lurking
taint of insanity in the housekeeper's blood had recurred to his
memory, and he had left the room at the first opportunity.

Captain Wragge listened with the closest attention to the narrative thus
presented to him. But one conclusion could be drawn from it--it was a
plain warning to him to hasten the end.

"I am not surprised," he said, gravely, "to hear that you are inclining
more favorably to my opinion. After what you have just told me, Mr.
Vanstone, no sensible man could do otherwise. This is becoming
serious. I hardly know what results may not be expected to follow the
communication of your approaching change in life to Mrs. Lecount. My
niece may be involved in those results. She is nervous; she is sensitive
in the highest degree; she is the innocent object of this woman's
unreasoning hatred and distrust. You alarm me, sir! I am not easily
thrown off my balance, but I acknowledge you alarm me for the future."
He frowned, shook his head, and looked at his visitor despondently.

Noel Vanstone began to feel uneasy. The change in Mr. Bygrave's manner
seemed ominous of a reconsideration of his proposals from a new and
unfavorable point of view. He took counsel of his inborn cowardice and
his inborn cunning, and proposed a solution of the difficulty discovered
b