very tidy, captain; I'll keep in my own corner,
if you'll please to give me one; and whether my
head Buzzes, or whether it don't, I'll sit straight
at my work all the same."

"You will do your work," said the captain,
sternly, "when you know who you are, who I
am, and who that young lady is—not before.
Show me your shoes! Good. Show me your
cap! Good. Make the breakfast."

When breakfast was over, Mrs. Wragge
received her orders to retire to an adjoining room,
and to wait there until her husband came to
release her. As soon as her back was turned,
Captain Wragge at once resumed the conversation
which had been suspended, by Magdalen's
own desire, on the preceding night. The questions
he now put to her, all related to the subject
of her visit in disguise to Noel Vanstone's
house. They were the questions of a
thoroughly clear-headed man—short, searching,
and straight to the point. In less than half an
hour's time, he had made himself acquainted
with every incident that had happened in
Vauxhall Walk.

The conclusions which the captain drew, after
gaining his information, were clear and easily
stated.

On the adverse side of the question, he
expressed his conviction that Mrs. Lecount had
certainly detected her visitor to be disguised;
that she had never really left the room, though
she might have opened and shut the door; and
that on both the occasions, therefore, when
Magdalen had been betrayed into speaking in her
own voice, Mrs. Lecount had heard her. On
the favourable side of the question, he was
perfectly satisfied that the painted face and eye-
lids, the wig, and the padded cloak had so
effectually concealed Magdalen's identity, that
she might, in her own person, defy the house-
keeper's closest scrutiny, so far as the matter
of appearance was concerned. The difficulty
of deceiving Mrs. Lecount's ears, as well as
her eyes, was, he readily admitted, not so easily
to be disposed of. But looking to the fact that
Magdalen, on both the occasions when she had
forgotten herself, had spoken in the heat of anger,
he was of opinion that her voice had every
reasonable chance of escaping detection—if she
carefully avoided all outbursts of temper for the
future, and spoke in those more composed and
ordinary tones of her voice, which Mrs. Lecount
had not yet heard. Upon the whole, the captain
was inclined to pronounce the prospect hopeful,
if one serious obstacle were cleared away at the
outset—that obstacle being nothing less than
the presence on the scene of action of Mrs.
Wragge.

To Magdalen's surprise, when the course of
her narrative brought her to the story of the
ghost, Captain Wragge listened with the air of a
man who was more annoyed than amused by what
he heard. When she had done, he plainly told
her that her unlucky meeting on the stairs of the
lodging-house with Mrs. Wragge was, in his
opinion, the most serious of all the accidents
that had happened in Vauxhall Walk.

"I can deal with the difficulty of my wife's
stupidity," he said, "as I have often dealt with
it before. I can hammer her new identity into
her head, but I can't hammer the ghost out of it.
We have no security that the woman in the grey
cloak and poke bonnnet may not come back to
her recollection, at the most critical time, and
under the most awkward circumstances. In
plain English, my dear girl, Mrs. Wragge is a
pitfal under our feet at every step we take."

"If we are aware of the pitfal," said
Magdalen, "we can take our measures for avoiding
it. What do you propose?"

"I propose," replied the captain, "the
temporary removal of Mrs. Wragge. Speaking
purely in a pecuniary point of view, I can't
afford a total separation from her. You have
often read of very poor people being suddenly
enriched, by legacies reaching them from remote
and unexpected quarters? Mrs. Wragge's case,
when I married her, was one of these. An
eIderly female relative shared the favours of
fortune, on that occasion, with my wife; and if
I only keep up domestic appearances, I happen
to know that Mrs. Wragge will prove a second
time profitable to me, on that elderly relative's
death. But for this circumstance, I should
probably long since have transferred my wife to the
care of society at large—in the agreeable
conviction that if I didn't support her, somebody
else would. Although I can't afford to take this
course, I see no objection to having her comfortably
boarded and lodged out of our way, for the
time being—say, at a retired farm-house, in the
character of a lady in infirm mental health. You
would find the expense trifling; I should find the
relief unutterable. What do you say? Shall I
pack her up at once, and take her away by the
next coach?"

"No!" replied Magdalen, firmly. "The poor
creature's life is hard enough already; I won't
help to make it harder. She was affectionately
and truly kind to me when I was ill—and I
won't allow her to be shut up among strangers
while I can help it. The risk of keeping her
here is only one risk more. I will face it,
Captain Wragge—if you won't."

"Think twice," said the captain, gravely,
"before you decide on keeping Mrs. Wragge."

"Once is enough," rejoined Magdalen. "I
won't have her sent away."

"Very good," said the captain, resignedly.
"I never interfere with questions of sentiment.
But I have a word to say, on my own behalf.
If my services are to be of any use to you, I can't
have my hands tied at starting. This is serious.
I won't trust my wife and Mrs. Lecount together.
I'm afraid, if you're not—and I make it a condition
that, if Mrs. Wragge stops here, she keeps
her room. If you think her health requires it,
you can take her for a walk early in the morning
or late in the evening—but you must never trust
her out with the servant, and never trust her out