y himself.

"Why should we tell Lecount at all?" he asked. "What right has Lecount
to know? Can't we be married without letting her into the secret? And
can't somebody tell her afterward when we are both out of her reach?"

Captain Wragge received this proposal with an expression of surprise
which did infinite credit to his power of control over his own
countenance. His foremost object throughout the interview had been to
conduct it to this point, or, in other words, to make the first idea
of keeping the marriage a secret from Mrs. Lecount emanate from Noel
Vanstone instead of from himself. No one knew better than the captain
that the only responsibilities which a weak man ever accepts are
responsibilities which can be perpetually pointed out to him as resting
exclusively on his own shoulders.

"I am accustomed to set my face against clandestine proceedings of all
kinds," said Captain Wragge. "But there are exceptions to the strictest
rules; and I am bound to admit, Mr. Vanstone, that your position in this
matter is an exceptional position, if ever there was one yet. The course
you have just proposed--however unbecoming I may think it, however
distasteful it may be to myself--would not only spare you a very serious
embarrassment (to say the least of it), but would also protect you from
the personal assertion of those pecuniary claims on the part of your
housekeeper to which you have already adverted. These are both desirable
results to achieve--to say nothing of the removal, on my side, of all
apprehension of annoyance to my niece. On the other hand, however, a
marriage solemnized with such privacy as you propose must be a hasty
marriage; for, as we are situated, the longer the delay the greater will
be the risk that our secret may escape our keeping. I am not against
hasty marriages where a mutual flame is fanned by an adequate income.
My own was a love-match contracted in a hurry. There are plenty of
instances in the experience of every one, of short courtships and speedy
marriages, which have turned up trumps--I beg your pardon--which have
turned out well after all. But if you and my niece, Mr. Vanstone, are
to add one to the number of these eases, the usual preliminaries of
marriage among the higher classes must be hastened by some means. You
doubtless understand me as now referring to the subject of settlements."

"I'll take another teaspoonful of brandy," said Noel Vanstone, holding
out his glass with a trembli