he fails to marry in all respects as I have here
instructed him to marry, within Six calendar
months from that time—it is my desire that he
shall not receive the legacy, or any part of it. I
request you, in the case here supposed, to pass
him over altogether; and to give the fortune left
you in my will, to his married sister, Mrs. Girdlestone.

"Having now put you in possession of my
motives and intentions, I come to the next
question which it is necessary to consider. If,
when you open this letter, your nephew is an
unmarried man, it is clearly indispensable that he
should know of the conditions here imposed on
him, as soon, if possible, as you know of them
yourself. Are you, under these circumstances,
freely to communicate to him what I have here
written to you? Or, are you to leave him under
the impression that no such private expression
of my wishes as this is in existence; and are you
to state all the conditions relating to his marriage,
as if they emanated entirely from yourself?

"If you will adopt this latter alternative, you
will add one more to the many obligations under
which your friendship has placed me.

"I have serious reason to believe that the
possession of my money, and the discovery of any
peculiar arrangements relating to the disposal of
it, will be objects (after my decease) of the fraud
and conspiracy of an unscrupulous person. I am
therefore anxious—for your sake, in the first
place—that no suspicion of the existence of this
letter should be conveyed to the mind of the
person to whom I allude. And I am equally
desirous—for Mrs. Girdlestone's sake, in the
second place—that this same person should be
entirely ignorant that the legacy will pass into
Mrs. Girdlestone's possession, if your nephew is
not married in the given time. I know George's
easy, pliable disposition; I dread the attempts
that will be made to practise on it; and I feel
sure that the prudent course will be, to abstain
from trusting him with secrets, the rash revelation
of which might be followed by serious, and
even dangerous results.

"State the conditions, therefore, to your
nephew, as if they were your own. Let him
think they have been suggested to your mind by
the new responsibilities imposed on you as a man
of property, by your position in my will, and by
your consequent anxiety to provide for the
perpetuation of the family name. If these reasons
are not sufficient to satisfy him, there can be no
objection to your referring him, for any further
explanations which he may desire, to his
wedding-day.

"I have done. My last wishes are now
confided to you, in implicit reliance on your honour,
and on your tender regard for the memory of
your friend. Of the miserable circumstances
which compel me to write as I have written here,
I say nothing. You will hear of them, if my life
is spared, from my own lips—for you will be the
first friend whom I shall consult in my difficulty
and distress. Keep this letter strictly secret,
and strictly in your own possession, until my
requests are complied with. Let no human
being but yourself know where it is, on any
pretence whatever.

"Believe me, dear Admiral Bartram,
"Affectionately yours,
"NOEL VANSTONE."

"Have you signed, sir?" asked Mrs. Lecount.
"Let me look the letter over, if you please, before
we seal it up."

She read the letter carefully. In Noel Vanstone's
close, cramped handwriting, it filled two
pages of letter paper, and ended at the top of the
third page. Instead of using an envelope, Mrs.
Lecount folded it, neatly and securely, in the old-
fashioned way. She lit the taper in the inkstand,
and returned the letter to the writer.

"Seal it, Mr. Noel," she said, "with your own
hand, and your own seal." She extinguished the
taper, and handed him the pen again. "Address
the letter, sir," she proceeded, " to Admiral
Bartram, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, Essex. Now add
these words, and sign them, above the address:
To be kept in your own possession, and to be opened
by yourself only, on the day of my death—or
'Decease,' if you prefer it—Noel Vanstone.
Have you done? Let me look at it again. Quite
right, in every particular. Accept my congratulations,
sir. If your wife has not plotted her last
plot for the Combe-Raven money, it is not your
fault, Mr. Noel—and not mine!"

Finding his attention released by the completion
of the letter, Noel Vanstone reverted at
once to purely personal considerations. "There
is my packing-up to be thought of now," he
said. "I can't go away without my warm
things."

"Excuse me, sir," rejoined Mrs. Lecount,
"there is the Will to be signed first; and there
must be two persons found to witness your
signature." She looked out of the front window,
and saw the carriage waiting at the door. "The
coachman will do for one of the witnesses," she
said. "He is in respectable service at Dumfries,
and he can be found if he happens to be wanted.
We must have one of your own servants, I
suppose, for the other witness. They are all
detestable women; but the cook is the least ill-
looking of the three. Send for the cook, sir,
while I go out and call the coachman. When we
have got our witnesses here, you have only to
speak to them in these words:—'I have a
document here to sign, and I wish you to write your
names on it, as witnesses of my signature.'
Nothing more, Mr. Noel! Say those few words, in
your usual manner—and, when the signing is
over, I will see myself to your packing-up, and
your warm things."

She went to the front door, and summoned the
coachman to the parlour. On her return she
found the cook already in the room. The cook
looked mysteriously offended, and stared without
intermission at Mrs. Lecount. In a minute
more, the coachman—an elderly man—came in.
He was preceded by a relishing odour of whisky—