"I beg your pardon," interposed Captain
Wragge. "Did you say, earning your living?"

"Certainly. Both my sister and myself must
depend on our own exertions to gain our daily
bread."

"What!!!" cried the captain, starting to his
feet, with a blank stare of dismay. "The
daughters of my wealthy and lamented relative
by marriage, reduced to earn their own living?
Impossible wildly, extravagantly impossible!"
He sat down again, and looked at Magdalen as if
she had inflicted a personal injury on him.

"You are not acquainted with the full extent
of our misfortune," she said, quietly. "I will
tell you what has happened before I go any
farther." She told him at once, in the plainest terms
she could find, and with as few details as possible.

Captain Wragge's profound bewilderment left
him conscious of but one distinct result, produced
by the narrative on his own mind. The lawyers
offer of Fifty Pounds Reward for the missing
young lady, ascended instantly to a place in his
estimation which it had never occupied until that
moment.

"Do I understand," he inquired, "that you
are entirely deprived of present resources?"

"I have sold my jewellery and my dresses,"
said Magdalen, impatient of his mean harping on
the pecuniary string. "If my want of
experience keeps me back in a theatre, I can afford
to wait till the stage can afford to pay me."

Captain Wragge mentally appraised the rings,
bracelets, and necklaces, the silks, satins, and laces
of the daughter of a gentleman of fortune, at say,
a third of their real value. In a moment more,
the Fifty Pounds Reward suddenly sank again to
the lowest depths in the deep estimation of this
judicious man.

"Just so," he said, in his most business-like
manner. "There is not the least fear, my dear
girl, of your being kept back in a theatre, if you
possess present resources, and if you profit by
my assistance."

"I must accept more assistance than you have
already offered—or none," said Magdalen. "I
have more serious difficulties before me than the
difficulty of leaving York, and the difficulty of
finding my way to the stage."

"You don't say so! I am all attention; pray
explain yourself."

She considered her next words carefully before
they passed her lips.

"There are certain inquiries," she said, "which
I am interested in making. If I undertook them
myself, I should excite the suspicion of the
person inquired after, and should learn little or
nothing of what I wish to know. If the
inquiries could be made by a stranger, without my
being seen in the matter, a service would be
rendered me of much greater importance than
the service you offered last night."

Captain Wragge's vagabond face became
gravely and deeply attentive.

"May I ask," he said, "what the nature of the
inquiries is likely to be?"

Magdalen hesitated. She had necessarily
mentioned Michael Vanstone' s name, in informing
the captain of the loss of her inheritance.
She must inevitably mention it to him again,
if she employed his services. He would doubtless
discover it for himself, by a plain process of
inference, before she said many words more,
frame them as carefully as she might. Under
these circumstances was there any intelligible
reason—for shrinking from direct reference to
Michael Vanstone? No intelligible reason and
yet, she shrank.

"For instance," pursued Captain Wragge,
"are they inquiries about a man or a woman;
inquiries about an enemy or a friend—— "

"An enemy," she answered quickly.

Her reply might still have kept the captain in
the dark—but her eyes enlightened him.
"Michael Vanstone!" thought the wary Wragge.
"She looks dangerous; I'll feel my way a little
farther."

"With regard, now, to the person who is the
object of these inquiries," he resumed. "Are
you thoroughly clear, in your own mind, about
what you want to know?"

"Perfectly clear," replied Magdalen. "I
want to know where he lives, to begin with?"

"Yes? And after that?"

"I want to know about his habits; about who
the people are whom he associates with; about
what he does with his money—" She
considered a little. "And one thing more," she
said; "I want to know whether there is any
woman about his house—a relation, or a
housekeeper—who has an influence over him."

"Harmless enough, so far," said the captain.
"What next?"

"Nothing. The rest is my secret."

The clouds on Captain Wragge's countenance
began to clear away again. He reverted with
his customary precision to his customary choice
of alternatives. "These inquiries of hers," he
thought, "mean one of two things—Mischief, or
Money! If it's Mischief, I'll slip through her
fingers. If it's Money, I'll make myself useful,
with a view to the future."

Magdalen's vigilant eyes watched the
progress of his reflections suspiciously. "Captain
Wragge," she said, "if you want time to
consider, say so plainly."

"I don't want a moment," replied the captain.
"Place your departure from York, your dramatic
career, and your private inquiries under my care.
Here I am, unreservedly at your disposal. Say
the word—do you take me?"

Her heart beat fast; her lips turned dry but
she said the word.

"I do."

There was a pause. Magdalen sat silent,
struggling with the vague dread of the future
which had been roused in her mind by her own
reply. Captain Wragge, on his side, was
apparently absorbed in the consideration of a new set
of alternatives. His hands descended into his