"You surprise me, you distress me, sir," said
Mrs. Lecount. "I entreat you to compose
yourself. I will stay here, if you wish it, with
pleasure—I will stay here to-night, for your sake.
You want rest and quiet, after this dreadful day.
The coachman shall be instantly sent away, Mr.
Noel. I will give him a note to the landlord of
the hotel—and the carriage shall come back for
us to-morrow morning, with another man to
drive it."

The prospect which those words presented
cheered him. He wiped his eyes, and kissed
Mrs. Lecount's hand.

"Yes!" he said, faintly; "send the coachman
away—and you stop here. You good creature!
You excellent Lecount! Send the drunken brute
away, and come back directly. We will be
comfortable by the fire, Lecount—and have a nice
little dinner—and try to make it like old times."
His weak voice faltered; he returned to the
fireside, and melted into tears again under the
pathetic influence of his own idea.

Mrs. Lecount left him for a minute to dismiss
the coachman. When she returned to the
parlour, she found him with his hand on the bell.

"What do you want, sir?" she asked.

"I want to tell the servants to get your room
ready," he answered. "I wish to show you
every attention, Lecount."

"You are all kindness, Mr. Noel—but wait one
moment. It may be well to have these papers
put out of the way, before the servant comes in
again. If you will place the Will and the Sealed
Letter together in one envelope—and if you will
direct it to the admiral—I will take care that
the enclosure so addressed is safely placed in his
own hands. Will you come to the table, Mr.
Noel, only for one moment more?"

No! He was obstinate; he refused to move
from the fire; he was sick and tired of writing;
he wished he had never been born, and he loathed
the sight of pen and ink. All Mrs. Lecount's
patience, and all Mrs. Lecount's persuasion, were
required to induce him to write the admiral's
address for the second time. She only succeeded
by bringing the blank envelope to him upon the
paper-case, and putting it coaxingly on his lap,
He grumbled, he even swore, but he directed the
envelope at last, in these terms: "To Admiral
Bartram, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh. Favoured by
Mrs. Lecount." With that final act of compliance,
his docility came to an end. He refused,
in the fiercest terms, to seal the envelope.

There was no need to press this proceeding on
him. His seal lay ready on the table; and it
mattered nothing whether he used it, or whether
a person in his confidence used it for him. Mrs.
Lecount sealed the envelope, with its two
important enclosures placed safely inside.

She opened her travelling-bag for the last time,
and pausing for a moment before she put the
sealed packet away, looked at it with a triumph
too deep for words. She smiled, as she dropped
it into the bag. Not the shadow of a suspicion
that the Will might contain superfluous phrases
and expressions which no practical lawyer would
have used; not the vestige of a doubt whether
the Letter was quite as complete a document as
a practical lawyer might have made it, troubled
her mind. In blind reliance—born of her hatred
for Magdalen and her hunger for revenge—in
blind reliance on her own abilities, and on her
friend's law, she trusted the future implicitly to
the promise of the morning's work.

As she locked her travelling-bag, Noel Vanstone
rang the bell. On this occasion, the
summons was answered by Louisa.

"Get the spare room ready," said her master;
"this lady will sleep here to-night. And air my
warm things; this lady and I are going away
tomorrow morning."

The civil and submissive Louisa received her
orders in sullen silence—darted an angry look at
her master's impenetrable guest—and left the
room. The servants were evidently all attached
to their mistress's interests, and were all of one
opinion on the subject of Mrs. Lecount.

"That's done!" said Noel Vanstone, with a
sigh of infinite relief. "Come and sit down,
Lecount. Let's be comfortable—let's gossip over
the fire."

Mrs. Lecount accepted the invitation; and
drew an easy-chair to his side. He took her hand
with a confidential tenderness, and held it in his,
while the talk went on. A stranger, looking in
through the window, would have taken them for
mother and son; and would have thought to
himself, "What a happy home!"

The gossip, led by Noel Vanstone, consisted,
as usual, of an endless string of questions, and
was devoted entirely to the subject of himself
and his future prospects. Where would Lecount
take him to, when they went away the next
morning? Why to London? Why should he
be left in London, while Lecount went on to St.
Crux to give the admiral the Letter and the Will?
Because his wife might follow him, if he went to
the admiral's? Well, there was something in
that. And because he ought to be safely
concealed from her, in some comfortable lodging,
near Mr. Loscombe? Why near Mr. Loscombe?
Ah, yes, to be sure—to know what the law would
do to help him. Would the law set him free from
the Wretch who had deceived him? How
tiresome of Lecount not to know! Would the law
say he had gone and married himself a second
time, because he had been living with the Wretch,
like husband and wife, in Scotland? Anything
that publicly assumed to be a marriage, was a
marriage (he had heard) in Scotland? How
excessively tiresome of Lecount to sit there, and
say she knew nothing about it! Was he to stay
long in London, by himself, with nobody but
Mr. Loscombe to speak to? Would Lecount
come back to him, as soon as she had put those
important papers in the admiral's own hands?
Would Lecount consider herself still in his
service? The good Lecount! the excellent Lecount!
And, after all the law-business was over—what
then? Why not leave this horrid England, and