usal of it, was (if the classical phrase might be pardoned) a
_sine qua non_.

The fifth day came. Noel Vanstone (after submitting himself to the _sine
qua non_, and destroying the letter) waited anxiously for results; while
Mrs. Lecount, on her side, watched patiently for events. Toward three
o'clock in the afternoon th e carriage appeared again at the gate of
North Shingles. Mr. Bygrave got out and tripped away briskly to the
landlord's cottage for the key. He returned with the servant at his
heels. Miss Bygrave left the carriage; her giant relative followed
her example; the house door was opened; the trunks were taken off; the
carriage disappeared, and the Bygraves were at home again!

Four o'clock struck, five o'clock, six o'clock, and nothing happened.
In half an hour more, Mr. Bygrave--spruce, speckless, and respectable as
ever--appeared on the Parade, sauntering composedly in the direction of
Sea View.

Instead of at once entering the house, he passed it; stopped, as if
struck by a sudden recollection; and, retracing his steps, asked for Mr.
Vanstone at the door. Mr. Vanstone came out hospitably into the
passage. Pitching his voice to a tone which could be easily heard by any
listening individual through any open door in the bedroom regions, Mr.
Bygrave announced the object of his visit on the door-mat in the fewest
possible words. He had been staying with a distant relative. The distant
relative possessed two pictures--Gems by the Old Masters--which he was
willing to dispose of, and which he had intrusted for that purpose to
Mr. Bygrave's care. If Mr. Noel Vanstone, as an amateur in such matters,
wished to see the Gems, they would be visible in half an hour's time,
when Mr. Bygrave would have returned to North Shingles.

Having delivered himself of this incomprehensible announcement, the
arch-conspirator laid his significant forefinger along the side of his
short Roman nose, said, "Fine weather, isn't it? Good-afternoon!" and
sauntered out inscrutably to continue his walk on the Parade.

On the expiration of the half-hour Noel Vanstone presented himself at
North Shingles, with the ardor of a lover burning inextinguishably
in his bosom, through the superincumbent mental fog of a thoroughly
bewildered man. To his inexpressible happiness, he found Magdalen alone
in the parlor. Never yet had she looked so beautiful in his eyes. The
rest and relief of her four days' absence from Aldborough had not failed
to prod