ys.

Greatly to his surprise, his doubts on this point were abruptly decided
by Magdalen herself.

He found her waiting for him in the room where the breakfast was laid.
She was walking restlessly to and fro, with her head drooping on her
bosom and her hair hanging disordered over her shoulders. The moment she
looked up on his entrance, the captain felt the fear which Mrs. Wragge
had felt before him--the fear that her mind would be struck prostrate
again, as it had been struck once already, when Frank's letter reached
her in Vauxhall Walk.

"Is he coming again to-day?" she asked, pushing away from her the chair
which Captain Wragge offered, with such violence that she threw it on
the floor.

"Yes," said the captain, wisely answering her in the fewest words. "He
is coming at two o'clock."

"Take me away!" she exclaimed, tossing her hair back wildly from her
face. "Take me away before he comes. I can't get over the horror of
marrying him while I am in this hateful place; take me somewhere where
I can forget it, or I shall go mad! Give me two days' rest--two days out
of sight of that horrible sea--two days out of prison in this horrible
house--two days anywhere in the wide world away from Aldborough. I'll
come back with you! I'll go through with it to the end! Only give me two
days' escape from that man and everything belonging to him! Do you hear,
you villain?" she cried, seizing his arm and shaking it in a frenzy of
passion; "I have been tortured enough--I can bear it no longer!"

There was but one way of quieting her, and the captain instantly took
it.

"If you will try to control yourself," he said, "you shall leave
Aldborough in an hour's time."

She dropped his arm, and leaned back heavily against the wall behind
her.

"I'll try," she answered, struggling for breath, but looking at him less
wildly. "You shan't complain of me, if I can help it." She attempted
confusedly to take her handkerchief from her apron pocket, and failed
to find it. The captain took it out for her. Her eyes softened, and she
drew her breath more freely as she received the handkerchief from him.
"You are a kinder man than I thought you were," she said; "I am sorry I
spoke so passionately to you just now--I am very, very sorry." The tears
stole into her eyes, and she offered him her hand with the native grace
and gentleness of happier days. "Be friends with me again," she said,
pleadingly. "I'm only a girl, Captain Wragge--I'm only a