She is a nameless, homeless, friendless wretch.
The law which takes care of you, the law which
takes care of all legitimate children, casts her like
carrion to the winds. It is your law—not hers.
She only knows it as the instrument of a vile
oppression, an insufferable wrong. The sense of
that wrong haunts her, like a possession of the
devil. The resolution to right that wrong burns
in her like fire. If that miserable girl was
married and rich with millions to-morrow, do
you think she would move an inch from her
purpose? I tell you, she would resist, to the
last breath in her body, the vile injustice which
has struck at the helpless children, through the
calamity of their father's death! I tell you,
she would shrink from no means which a
desperate woman can employ, to force that
closed hand of yours open, or die in the
attempt!"

She stopped abruptly. Once more, her own
indomitable earnestness had betrayed her. Once
more, the natural nobility of that perverted
nature, had risen superior to the deception which
it had stooped to practise. The scheme of the
moment vanished from her mind's view; and the
resolution of her life burst its way outward in
her own words, in her own tones, pouring hotly
and more hotly from her heart. She saw the
abject mannikin before her, cowering silent in his
chair. Had his fears left him sense enough to
perceive the change in her voice? No: his face
spoke the truth—his fears had bewildered him.
This time, the chance of the moment had
befriended her. The door behind her chair had not
opened again yet. "No ears but his have heard
me," she thought, with a sense of unutterable
relief. "I have escaped Mrs. Lecount."

She had done nothing of the kind. Mrs.
Lecount had never left the room.

After opening the door and closing it again,
without going out, the housekeeper had
noiselessly knelt down behind Magdalen's chair.
Steadying herself against the post of the folding-
door, she took a pair of scissors from her pocket,
waited until Noel Vanstone (from whose view
she was entirely hidden) had attracted Magdalen's
attention by speaking to her; and then
bent forward with the scissors ready in her hand.
The skirt of the false Miss Garth's gown—the
brown alpaca dress, with the white spots on it—
touched the floor, within the housekeeper's reach.
Mrs. Lecount lifted the outer of the two flounces
which ran round the bottom of the dress, one
over the other; softly cut away a little
irregular fragment of the stuff from the inner
flounce; and neatly smoothed the outer one over
it again, so as to hide the gap. By the time she
had put the scissors back in her pocket, and had
risen to her feet (sheltering herself behind the
post of the folding-door), Magdalen had spoken
her last words. Mrs. Lecount quietly repeated
the ceremony of opening and shutting the
back parlour door; and glided back to her
place.

"What has happened, sir, in my absence?" she
inquired, addressing her master with a look of
alarm. "You are pale; you are agitated! Oh,
Miss Garth, have you forgotten the caution I
gave you in the other room?"

"Miss Garth has forgotten everything," cried
Mr. Noel Vanstone, recovering his lost
composure on the reappearance of Mrs. Lecount.
"Miss Garth has threatened me in the most
outrageous manner. I forbid you to pity either of
those two girls any more, Lecount—especially
the younger one. She is the most desperate
wretch I ever heard of! If she can't get my
money by fair means, she threatens to have it by
foul. Miss Garth has told me that, to my face.
To my face!" he repeated, folding his arms and
looking mortally insulted.

"Compose yourself, sir," said Mrs. Lecount,
"Pray compose yourself, and leave me to speak
to Miss Garth.—I regret to hear, ma'am, that you
have forgotten what I said to you in the next
room. You have agitated Mr. Noel; you have
compromised the interests you came here to
plead; and you have only repeated what we knew
before. The language you have allowed yourself
to use in my absence, is the same language which
your pupil was foolish enough to employ when
she wrote for the second time, to my late master.
How can a lady of your years and experience
seriously repeat such nonsense? This girl boasts
and threatens. She will do this; she will do
that. You have her confidence, ma'am. Tell me,
if you please, in plain words, what can she
do?"

Sharply as the taunt was pointed, it glanced
off harmless. Mrs. Lecount had planted her
sting once too often. Magdalen rose, in complete
possession of her assumed character, and
composedly terminated the interview. Ignorant as
she was of what had happened behind her chair,
she saw a change in Mrs. Lecount's look
and manner, which warned her to run no more
risks, and to trust herself no longer in the
house.

"I am not in my pupil's confidence," she said.
"Her own acts will answer your question when
the time comes. I can only tell you, from my
own knowledge of her, that she is no boaster.
What she wrote to Mr. Michael Vanstone, was
what she was prepared to do—what, I have reason
to think, she was actually on the point of
doing, when her plans were overthrown by his
death. Mr. Michael Vanstone's son has only to
persist in following his father's course, to find
before long, that I am not mistaken in my pupil,
and that I have not come here to intimidate him
by empty threats. My errand is done. I leave
Mr. Noel Vanstone with two alternatives to
choose from. I leave him to share Mr. Andrew
Vanstone's fortune with Mr. Andrew Vanstone's
daughters—or to persist in his present refusal,
and face the consequences." She bowed, and
walked to the door.

Mr. Noel Vanstone started to his feet, with
anger and alarm struggling which should express
itself first in his blank white face. Before he