Lecount's letter. Take my word for it, she is
capable of giving you serious trouble if you
persist in making an enemy of her."

Mr. Noel Vanstone changed colour once more,
and began to fidget again in his chair. "Serious
trouble," he repeated, with a blank look. "If you
mean writing letters, ma'am, she has given trouble
enough already. She has written once to me,
and twice to my father. One of the letters to
my father was a threatening letter—wasn't it,
Lecount?"

"She expressed her feelings, poor child," said
Mrs. Lecount. "I thought it hard to send her
back her letter, but your dear father knew best.
What I said at the time was, Why not let her
express her feelings? What are a few threatening
words, after all? In her position, poor creature,
they are words, and nothing more."

"I advise you not to be too sure of that,"
said Magdalen. "I know her better than you
do."

She paused at those words—paused in a
momentary terror. The sting of Mrs. Lecount's
pity had nearly irritated her into forgetting
her assumed character, and speaking in her own
voice.

"You have referred to the letters written by my
pupil," she resumed, addressing Noel Vanstone,
as soon as she felt sure of herself again. "We
will say nothing about what she has written to
your father; we will only speak of what she has
written to you. Is there anything unbecoming
in her letter, anything said in it that is false?
Is it not true that these two sisters have been
cruelly deprived of the provision which their
father made for them? His will to this day
speaks for him and for them; and it only speaks
to no purpose, because he was not aware that his
marriage obliged him to make it again, and
because he died before he could remedy the error.
Can you deny that?"

Mr. Noel Vanstone smiled, and helped himself
to a strawberry. "I don't attempt to deny it,"
he said. "Go on, Miss Garth."

"Is it not true," persisted Magdalen, "that
the law which has taken the money from these
sisters, whose father made no second will, has
now given that very money to you, whose father
made no will at all? Surely, explain it how you
may, this is hard on those orphan girls?"

"Very hard," replied Mr. Noel Vanstone. "It
strikes you in that light, too—doesn't it,
Lecount?"

Mrs. Lecount shook her head, and closed her
handsome black eyes. "Harrowing," she said;
"I can characterise it, Miss Garth, by no other
word—harrowing. How the young person—no!
how Miss Vanstone the younger—discovered that
my late respected master made no will, I am at a
loss to understand. Perhaps it was put in the
papers? But I am interrupting you, Miss Garth.
You have something more to say about your
pupil's letter?" She noiselessly drew her chair
forward as she said those words, a few inches
beyond the line of the visitor's chair. The attempt
was neatly made, but it proved useless. Magdalen
only kept her head more to the left—and the
packing-case on the floor prevented Mrs. Lecount
from advancing any farther.

"I have only one more question to put," said
Magdalen. "My pupil's letter addressed a
proposal to Mr. Noel Vanstone. I beg him to
inform me why he has refused to consider it."

"My good lady!" cried Mr. Noel Vanstone,
arching his white eyebrows in satirical astonishment.
"Are you really in earnest? Do you
know what the proposal is? Have you seen the
letter?"

"I am quite in earnest," said Magdalen, "and
I have seen the letter. It entreats you to remember
how Mr. Andrew Vanstone's fortune has
come into your hands; it informs you that one-half
of that fortune, divided between his daughters, was
what his will intended them to have; and it asks
of your sense of justice to do for his children,
what he would have done for them himself if he
had lived. In plainer words still, it asks you to
give one-half of the money to the daughters, and
it leaves you free to keep the other half yourself.
That is the proposal. Why have you refused to
consider it?"

"For the simplest possible reason, Miss Garth,"
said Mr. Noel Vanstone, in high good humour.
"Allow me to remind you of a well-known
proverb: A fool and his money are soon parted.
Whatever else I may be, ma'am, I'm not a
fool."

"Don't put it in that way, sir!" remonstrated
Mrs. Lecount. "Be serious—pray be serious!"

"Quite impossible, Lecount," rejoined her
master. "I can't be serious. My poor father,
Miss Garth, took a high moral point of view in
this matter. Lecount, there, takes a high moral
point of view—don't you, Lecount? I do nothing
of the sort. I have lived too long in the
continental atmosphere to trouble myself about moral
points of view. My course in this business is as
plain as two and two make four. I have got the
money, and I should be a born idiot if I parted
with it. There is my point of view! Simple
enough, isn't it? I don't stand on my dignity;
I don't meet you with the law, which is all on
my side; I don't blame your coming here, as a
total stranger, to try and alter my resolution; I
don't blame the two girls for wanting to dip their
fingers into my purse. All I say is, I am not fool
enough to open it. Pas si bête, as we used to
say in the English circle at Zurich. You understand
French, Miss Garth? Pas si bête!" He
set aside his plate of strawberries once more,
and daintily dried his fingers on his fine white
napkin.

Magdalen kept her temper. If she could have
struck him dead by lifting her hand at that
moment—it is probable she would have lifted it.
But she kept her temper.

"Am I to understand," she asked, "that the
last words you have to say in this matter are
the words said for you in Mrs. Lecount's
letter?"