“I give and bequeath to Madame Virginie Lecompte (widow of Professor

Lecompte, late of Zurich) the sum of Five Thousand Pounds, free of

Legacy Duty. And, in making this bequest, I wish to place it on record

that I am not only expressing my own sense of Madame Lecompte’s

attachment and fidelity in the capacity of my housekeeper, but that I

also believe myself to be executing the intentions of my deceased

father, who, but for the circumstance of his dying intestate, would

have left Madame Lecompte, in _his_ will, the same token of grateful

regard for her services which I now leave her in mine.”

“Have you written the last words, sir?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Lecount leaned across the table and offered Noel Vanstone her

hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Noel,” she said. “The five thousand pounds is the

acknowledgment on your father’s side of what I have done for him. The

words in the will are the acknowledgment on yours.”

A faint smile flickered over his face for the first time. It comforted

him, on reflection, to think that matters might have been worse. There

was balm for his wounded spirit in paying the debt of gratitude by a

sentence not negotiable at his banker’s. Whatever his father might have

done, _he_ had got Lecount a bargain, after all!

“A little more writing, sir,” resumed Mrs. Lecount, “and your painful

but necessary duty will be performed. The trifling matter of my legacy

being settled, we may come to the important question that is left. The

future direction of a large fortune is now waiting your word of

command. To whom is it to go?”

He began to writhe again in his chair. Even under the all-powerful

fascination of his wife the parting with his money on paper had not

been accomplished without a pang. He had endured the pang; he had

resigned himself to the sacrifice. And now here was the dreaded ordeal

again, awaiting him mercilessly for the second time!

“Perhaps it may assist your decision, sir, if I repeat a question which

I have put to you already,” observed Mrs. Lecount. “In the will that

you made under your wife’s influence, to whom did you leave the surplus

money which remained at your own disposal?”

There was no harm in answering the question now. He acknowledged that

he had left the money to his cousin George.

“You could have done nothing better, Mr. Noel; and you can do nothing

better now,” said Mrs. Lecount. “Mr. George and his two sisters are

your only relations left. One of those sisters is an incurable invalid,

with more than money enough already for all the wants which her

affliction allows her to feel. The other is the wife of a man even

richer than yourself. To leave the money to these sisters is to waste

it. To leave the money to their brother George is to give your cousin

exactly the assistance which he will want when he one day inherits his

uncle’s dilapidated house and his uncle’s impoverished estate. A will

which names the admiral your executor and Mr. George your heir is the

right will for you to make. It does honor to the claims of friendship,

and it does justice to the claims of blood.”

She spoke warmly; for she spoke with a grateful remembrance of all that

she herself owed to the hospitality of St. Crux. Noel Vanstone took up

another pen and began to strip the second quill of its feathers as he

had stripped the first.

“Yes,” he said, reluctantly, “I suppose George must have it—I suppose

George has the principal claim on me.” He hesitated: he looked at the

door, he looked at the window, as if he longed to make his escape by

one way or the other. “Oh, Lecount,” he cried, piteously, “it’s such a

large fortune! Let me wait a little before I leave it to anybody.”

To his surprise; Mrs. Lecount at once complied with this characteristic

request.

“I wish you to wait, sir,” she replied. “I have something important to

say, before you add another line to your will. A little while since, I

told you there was a second necessity connected with your present

situation, which had not been provided for yet, but which must be

provided for, when the time came. The time has come now. You have a

serious difficulty to meet and conquer before you can leave your

fortune to your cousin George.”

“What difficulty?” he asked.

Mrs. Lecount rose from her chair without answering, stole to the door,

and suddenly threw it open. No one was listening outside; the passage

was a solitude, from one end to the other.

“I distrust all servants,” she said, returning to her place—“your

servants particularly. Sit closer, Mr. Noel. What I have now to say to

you must be heard by no living creature but ourselves.”

CHAPTER III.

There was a pause of a few minutes while Mrs. Lecount opened the second

of the two papers which lay before her on the table, and refreshed her

memory by looking it rapidly through. This done, she once more

addressed herself to Noel Vanstone, carefully lowering her voice, so as

to render it inaudible to any one who might be listening in the passage

outside.

“I must beg your permission, sir,” she began, “to return to the subject

of your wife. I do so most unwillingly; and I promise you that what I

have now to say about her shall be said, for your sake and for mine, in

the fewest words. What do we know of this woman, Mr. Noel—judging her

by her own confession when she came to us in the character of Miss

Garth, and by her own acts afterward at Aldborough? We know that, if

death had not snatched your father out of her reach, she was ready with

her plot to rob him of the Combe-Raven money. We know that, when you

inherited the money in your turn, she was ready with her plot to rob

_you_. We know how she carried that plot through to the end; and we

know that nothing but your death is wanted, at this moment, to crown

her rapacity and her deception with success. We are sure of these

things. We are sure that she is young, bold, and clever—that she has

neither doubts, scruples, nor pity—and that she possesses the personal

qualities which men in general (quite incomprehensibly to _me!_) are

weak enough to admire. These are not fancies, Mr. Noel, but facts; you

know them as well as I do.”

He made a sign in the affirmative, and Mrs. Lecount went on:

“Keep in your mind what I have said of the past, sir, and now look with

me to the future. I hope and trust you have a long life still before

you; but let us, for the moment only, suppose the case of your

death—your death leaving this will behind you, which gives your fortune

to your cousin George. I am told there is an office in London in which

copies of all wills must be kept. Any curious stranger who chooses to

pay a shilling for the privilege may enter that office, and may read

any will in the place at his or her discretion. Do you see what I am

coming to, Mr. Noel? Your disinherited widow pays her shilling, and

reads your will. Your disinherited widow sees that the Combe-Raven

money, which has gone from your father to you, goes next from you to

Mr. George Bartram. What is the certain end of that discovery? The end

is, that you leave to your cousin and your friend the legacy of this

woman’s vengeance and this woman’s deceit-vengeance made more resolute,

deceit made more devilish than ever, by her exasperation at her own

failure. What is your cousin George? He is a generous, unsuspicious

man; incapable of deceit himself, and fearing no deception in others.

Leave him at the mercy of your wife’s unscrupulous fascinations and

your wife’s unfathomable deceit, and I see the end as certainly as I

see you sitting there! She will blind his eyes, as she blinded yours;

and, in spite of _you_, in spite of _me_, she will have the money!”

She stopped, and left her last words time to gain their hold on his

mind. The circumstances had been stated so clearly, the conclusion from

them had been so plainly drawn, that he seized her meaning without an

effort, and seized it at once.

“I see!” he said, vindictively clinching his hands. “I understand,

Lecount! She shan’t have a farthing. What shall I do? Shall I leave the

money to the admiral?” He paused, and considered a little. “No,” he

resumed; “there’s the same danger in leaving it to the admiral that

there is in leaving it to George.”

“There is no danger, Mr. Noel, if you take my advice.”

“What is your advice?”

“Follow your own idea, sir. Take the pen in hand again, and leave the

money to Admiral Bartram.”

He mechanically dipped the pen in the ink, and then hesitated.

“You shall know where I am leading you, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount,

“before you sign your will. In the meantime, let us gain every inch of

ground we can, as we go on. I want the will to be all written out

before we advance a single step beyond it. Begin your third paragraph,

Mr. Noel, under the lines which leave me my legacy of five thousand

pounds.”

She dictated the last momentous sentence of the will (from the rough

draft in her own possession) in these words:

“The whole residue of my estate, after payment of my burial expenses

and my lawful debts, I give and bequeath to Rear-Admiral Arthur Everard

Bartram, my Executor aforesaid; to be by him applied to such uses as he

may think fit.

“Signed, sealed, and delivered, this third day of November, eighteen

hundred and forty-seven, by Noel Vanstone, the within-named testator,

as and for his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us—”

“Is that all?” asked Noel Vanstone, in astonishment.

“That is enough, sir, to bequeath your fortune to the admiral; and

therefore that is all. Now let us go back to the case which we have

supposed already. Your widow pays her shilling, and sees this will.

There is the Combe-Raven money left to Admiral Bartram, with a

declaration in plain words that it is his, to use as he likes. When she

sees this, what does she do? She sets her trap for the admiral. He is a

bachelor, and he is an old man. Who is to protect him against the arts

of this desperate woman? Protect him yourself, sir, with a few more

strokes of that pen which has done such wonders already. You have left

him this legacy in your will—which your wife sees. Take the legacy away

again, in a letter—which is a dead secret between the admiral and you.

Put the will and the letter under one cover, and place them in the

admiral’s possession, with your written directions to him to break the

seal on the day of your death. Let the will say what it says now; and

let the letter (which is your secret and his) tell him the truth. Say

that, in leaving him your fortune, you leave it with the request that

he will take his legacy with one hand from you, and give it with the

other to his nephew George. Tell him that your trust in this matter

rests solely on your confidence in his honor, and on your belief in his

affectionate remembrance of your father and yourself. You have known

the admiral since you were a boy. He has his little whims and oddities;

but he is a gentleman from the crown of his head to the sole of his

foot; and he is utterly incapable of proving false to a trust in his

honor, reposed by his dead friend. Meet the difficulty boldly, by such

a stratagem as this; and you save these two helpless men from your

wife’s snare, one by means of the other. Here, on one side, is your

will, which gives the fortune to the admiral, and sets her plotting

accordingly. And there, on the other side, is your letter, which

privately puts the money into the nephew’s hands!”

The malicious dexterity of this combination was exactly the dexterity

which Noel Vanstone was most fit to appreciate. He tried to express his

approval and admiration in words. Mrs. Lecount held up her hand

warningly and closed his lips.

“Wait, sir, before you express your opinion,” she went on. “Half the

difficulty is all that we have conquered yet. Let us say, the admiral

has made the use of your legacy which you have privately requested him

to make of it. Sooner or later, however well the secret may be kept,

your wife will discover the truth. What follows that discovery! She

lays siege to Mr. George. All you have done is to leave him the money

by a roundabout way. There he is, after an interval of time, as much at

her mercy as if you had openly mentioned him in your will. What is the

remedy for this? The remedy is to mislead her, if we can, for the

second time—to set up an obstacle between her and the money, for the

protection of your cousin George. Can you guess for yourself, Mr. Noel,

what is the most promising obstacle we can put in her way?”

He shook his head. Mrs. Lecount smiled, and startled him into close

attention by laying her hand on his arm.

“Put a Woman in her way, sir!” she whispered in her wiliest tones.

“_We_ don’t believe in that fascinating beauty of hers—whatever _you_

may do. _Our_ lips don’t burn to kiss those smooth cheeks. _Our_ arms

don’t long to be round that supple waist. _We_ see through her smiles

and her graces, and her stays and her padding—she can’t fascinate _us!_

Put a woman in her way, Mr. Noel! Not a woman in my helpless situation,

who is only a servant, but a woman with the authority and the jealousy

of a Wife. Make it a condition, in your letter to the admiral, that if

Mr. George is a bachelor at the time of your death, he shall marry

within a certain time afterward, or he shall not have the legacy.

Suppose he remains single in spite of your condition, who is to have

the money then? Put a woman in your wife’s way, sir, once more—and

leave the fortune, in that case, to the married sister of your cousin

George.”

She paused. Noel Vanstone again attempted to express his opinion, and

again Mrs. Lecount’s hand extinguished him in silence.

“If you approve, Mr. Noel,” she said, “I will take your approval for

granted. If you object, I will meet your objection before it is out of

your mouth. You may say: Suppose this condition is sufficient to answer

the purpose, why hide it in a private letter to the admiral? Why not

openly write it down, with my cousin’s name, in the will? Only for one

reason, sir. Only because the secret way is the sure way, with such a

woman as your wife. The more secret you can keep your intentions, the

more time you force her to waste in finding them out for herself. That

time which she loses is time gained from her treachery by the

admiral—time gained by Mr. George (if he is still a bachelor) for his

undisturbed choice of a lady—time gained, for her own security, by the

object of his choice, who might otherwise be the first object of your

wife’s suspicion and your wife’s hostility. Remember the bottle we have

discovered upstairs; and keep this desperate woman ignorant, and

therefore harmless, as long as you can. There is my advice, Mr. Noel,

in the fewest and plainest words. What do you say, sir? Am I almost as

clever in my way as your friend Mr. Bygrave? Can I, too, conspire a

little, when the object of my conspiracy is to assist your wishes and

to protect your friends?”

Permitted the use of his tongue at last, Noel Vanstone’s admiration of

Mrs. Lecount expressed itself in terms precisely similar to those which

he had used on a former occasion, in paying his compliments to Captain

Wragge. “What a head you have got!” were the grateful words which he

had once spoken to Mrs. Lecount’s bitterest enemy. “What a head you

have got!” were the grateful words which he now spoke again to Mrs.

Lecount herself. So do extremes meet; and such is sometimes the

all-embracing capacity of the approval of a fool!

“Allow my head, sir, to deserve the compliment which you have paid to

it,” said Mrs. Lecount. “The letter to the admiral is not written yet.

Your will there is a body without a soul—an Adam without an Eve—until

the letter is completed and laid by its side. A little more dictation

on my part, a little more writing on yours, and our work is done.

Pardon me. The letter will be longer than the will; we must have larger

paper than the note-paper this time.”

The writing-case was searched, and some letter paper was found in it of

the size required. Mrs. Lecount resumed her dictation; and Noel

Vanstone resumed his pen.

“Baliol Cottage, Dumfries,

“November 3d, 1847.

“Private.

“DEAR ADMIRAL BARTRAM,

“When you open my Will (in which you are named my sole executor), you

will find that I have bequeathed the whole residue of my estate—after

payment of one legacy of five thousand pounds—to yourself. It is the

purpose of my letter to tell you privately what the object is for which

I have left you the fortune which is now placed in your hands.

“I beg you to consider this large legacy as intended, under certain

conditions, to be given by you to your nephew George. If your nephew is

married at the time of my death, and if his wife is living, I request

you to put him at once in possession of your legacy; accompanying it by

the expression of my desire (which I am sure he will consider a sacred

and binding obligation on him) that he will settle the money on his

wife—and on his children, if he has any. If, on the other hand, he is

unmarried at the time of my death, or if he is a widower—in either of

those cases, I make it a condition of his receiving the legacy, that he

shall be married within the period of—”

Mrs. Lecount laid down the Draft letter from which she had been

dictating thus far, and informed Noel Vanstone by a sign that his pen

might rest.

“We have come to the question of time, sir,” she observed. “How long

will you give your cousin to marry, if he is single, or a widower, at

the time of your death?”

“Shall I give him a year?” inquired Noel Vanstone.

“If we had nothing to consider but the interests of Propriety,” said

Mrs. Lecount, “I should say a year too, sir—especially if Mr. George

should happen to be a widower. But we have your wife to consider, as

well as the interests of Propriety. A year of delay, between your death

and your cousin’s marriage, is a dangerously long time to leave the

disposal of your fortune in suspense. Give a determined woman a year to

plot and contrive in, and there is no saying what she may not do.”

“Six months?” suggested Noel Vanstone.

“Six months, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, “is the preferable time of

the two. A six months’ interval from the day of your death is enough

for Mr. George. You look discomposed, sir; what is the matter?”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk so much about my death,” he broke out,

petulantly. “I don’t like it! I hate the very sound of the word!”

Mrs. Lecount smiled resignedly, and referred to her Draft.

“I see the word ‘decease’ written here,” she remarked. “Perhaps, Mr.

Noel, you would prefer it?”

“Yes,” he said; “I prefer ‘Decease.’ It doesn’t sound so dreadful as

‘Death.’”

“Let us go on with the letter, sir.”

She resumed her dictation, as follows:

“...in either of those cases, I make it a condition of his receiving

the legacy that he shall be married within the period of Six calendar

months from the day of my decease; that the woman he marries shall not

be a widow; and that his marriage shall be a marriage by Banns,

publicly celebrated in the parish church of Ossory—where he has been

known from his childhood, and where the family and circumstances of his

future wife are likely to be the subject of public interest and

inquiry.”

“This,” said Mrs. Lecount, quietly looking up from the Draft, “is to

protect Mr. George, sir, in case the same trap is set for him which was

successfully set for you. She will not find her false character and her

false name fit quite so easily next time—no, not even with Mr. Bygrave

to help her! Another dip of ink, Mr. Noel; let us write the next

paragraph. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Lecount went on.

“If your nephew fails to comply with these conditions—that is to say,

if being either a bachelor or a widower at the time of my decease, 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 practice 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 honor, 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

pretense 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 ink-stand, 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 parlor. 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 odor of whisky; but his head was Scotch; and nothing but

his odor betrayed him.

“I have a document here to sign,” said Noel Vanstone, repeating his

lesson; “and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my

signature.”

The coachman looked at the will. The cook never removed her eyes from

Mrs. Lecount.

“Ye’ll no object, sir,” said the coachman, with the national caution

showing itself in every wrinkle on his face—“ye’ll no object, sir, to

tell me, first, what the Doecument may be?”

Mrs. Lecount interposed before Noel Vanstone’s indignation could

express itself in words.

“You must tell the man, sir, that this is your Will,” she said. “When

he witnesses your signature, he can see as much for himself if he looks

at the top of the page.”

“Ay, ay,” said the coachman, looking at the top of the page

immediately. “His last Will and Testament. Hech, sirs! there’s a sair

confronting of Death in a Doecument like yon! A’ flesh is grass,”

continued the coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whisky, and

looking up devoutly at the ceiling. “Tak’ those words in connection

with that other Screepture: Many are ca’ad, but few are chosen. Tak’

that again, in connection with Rev’lations, Chapter the First, verses

One to Fefteen. Lay the whole to heart; and what’s your Walth, then?

Dross, sirs! And your body? (Screepture again.) Clay for the potter!

And your life? (Screepture once more.) The Breeth o’ your Nostrils!”

The cook listened as if the cook was at church: but she never removed

her eyes from Mrs. Lecount.

“You had better sign, sir. This is apparently some custom prevalent in

Dumfries during the transaction of business,” said Mrs. Lecount,

resignedly. “The man means well, I dare say.”

She added those last words in a soothing tone, for she saw that Noel

Vanstone’s indignation was fast merging into alarm. The coachman’s

outburst of exhortation seemed to have inspired him with fear, as well

as disgust.

He dipped the pen in the ink, and signed the Will without uttering a

word. The coachman (descending instantly from Theology to Business)

watched the signature with the most scrupulous attention; and signed

his own name as witness, with an implied commentary on the proceeding,

in the form of another puff of whisky, exhaled through the medium of a

heavy sigh. The cook looked away from Mrs. Lecount with an

effort—signed her name in a violent hurry—and looked back again with a

start, as if she expected to see a loaded pistol (produced in the

interval) in the housekeeper’s hands. “Thank you,” said Mrs. Lecount,

in her friendliest manner. The cook shut up her lips aggressively and

looked at her master. “You may go!” said her master. The cook coughed

contemptuously, and went.

“We shan’t keep you long,” said Mrs. Lecount, dismissing the coachman.

“In half an hour, or less, we shall be ready for the journey back.”

The coachman’s austere countenance relaxed for the first time. He

smiled mysteriously, and approached Mrs. Lecount on tiptoe.

“Ye’ll no forget one thing, my leddy,” he said, with the most

ingratiating politeness. “Ye’ll no forget the witnessing as weel as the

driving, when ye pay me for my day’s wark!” He laughed with guttural

gravity; and, leaving his atmosphere behind him, stalked out of the

room.

“Lecount,” said Noel Vanstone, as soon as the coachman closed the door,

“did I hear you tell that man we should be ready in half an hour?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you blind?”

He asked the question with an angry stamp of his foot. Mrs. Lecount

looked at him in astonishment.

“Can’t you see the brute is drunk?” he went on, more and more

irritably. “Is my life nothing? Am I to be left at the mercy of a

drunken coachman? I won’t trust that man to drive me, for any

consideration under heaven! I’m surprised you could think of it,

Lecount.”

“The man has been drinking, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “It is easy to see

and to smell that. But he is evidently used to drinking. If he is sober

enough to walk quite straight—which he certainly does—and to sign his

name in an excellent handwriting—which you may see for yourself on the

Will—I venture to think he is sober enough to drive us to Dumfries.”

“Nothing of the sort! You’re a foreigner, Lecount; you don’t understand

these people. They drink whisky from morning to-night. Whisky is the

strongest spirit that’s made; whisky is notorious for its effect on the

brain. I tell you, I won’t run the risk. I never was driven, and I

never will be driven, by anybody but a sober man.”

“Must I go back to Dumfries by myself, sir?”

“And leave me here? Leave me alone in this house after what has

happened? How do I know my wife may not come back to-night? How do I

know her journey is not a blind to mislead me? Have you no feeling,

Lecount? Can you leave me in my miserable situation—?” He sank into a

chair and burst out crying over his own idea, before he had completed

the expression of it in words. “Too bad!” he said, with his

handkerchief over his face—“too bad!”

It was impossible not to pity him. If ever mortal was pitiable, he was

the man. He had broken down at last, under the conflict of violent

emotions which had been roused in him since the morning. The effort to

follow Mrs. Lecount along the mazes of intricate combination through

which she had steadily led the way, had upheld him while that effort

lasted: the moment it was at an end, he dropped. The coachman had

hastened a result—of which the coachman was far from being the cause.

“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 fire side, 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 parlor 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 inclosure so addressed is safely placed in his own hands. Will you

come to the table, Mr. Noel, only for one minute 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. Favored 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 inclosures placed safely inside.

She opened her traveling-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 traveling-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

to-morrow 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

go abroad again? Why not go to France, to some cheap place near Paris?

Say Versailles? say St. Germain? In a nice little French house—cheap?

With a nice French _bonne_ to cook—who wouldn’t waste his substance in

the grease-pot? With a nice little garden—where he could work himself,

and get health, and save the expense of keeping a gardener? It wasn’t a

bad idea. And it seemed to promise well for the future—didn’t it,

Lecount?

So he ran on—the poor weak creature! the abject, miserable little man!

As the darkness gathered at the close of the short November day he

began to grow drowsy—his ceaseless questions came to an end at last—he

fell asleep. The wind outside sang its mournful winter-song; the tramp

of passing footsteps, the roll of passing wheels on the road ceased in

dreary silence. He slept on quietly. The firelight rose and fell on his

wizen little face and his nervous, drooping hands. Mrs. Lecount had not

pitied him yet. She began to pity him now. Her point was gained; her

interest in his will was secured; he had put his future life, of his

own accord, under her fostering care—the fire was comfortable; the

circumstances were favorable to the growth of Christian feeling. “Poor

wretch!” said Mrs. Lecount, looking at him with a grave

compassion—“poor wretch!”

The dinner-hour roused him. He was cheerful at dinner; he reverted to

the idea of the cheap little house in France; he smirked and simpered;

and talked French to Mrs. Lecount, while the house-maid and Louisa

waited, turn and turn about, under protest. When dinner was over, he

returned to his comfortable chair before the fire, and Mrs. Lecount

followed him. He resumed the conversation—which meant, in his case,

repeating his questions. But he was not so quick and ready with them as

he had been earlier in the day. They began to flag—they continued, at

longer and longer intervals—they ceased altogether. Toward nine o’clock

he fell asleep again.

It was not a quiet sleep this time. He muttered, and ground his teeth,

and rolled his head from side to side of the chair. Mrs. Lecount

purposely made noise enough to rouse him. He woke, with a vacant eye

and a flushed cheek. He walked about the room restlessly, with a new

idea in his mind—the idea of writing a terrible letter; a letter of

eternal farewell to his wife. How was it to be written? In what

language should he express his feelings? The powers of Shakespeare

himself would be unequal to the emergency! He had been the victim of an

outrage entirely without parallel. A wretch had crept into his bosom! A

viper had hidden herself at his fireside! Where could words be found to

brand her with the infamy she deserved? He stopped, with a suffocating

sense in him of his own impotent rage—he stopped, and shook his fist

tremulously in the empty air.

Mrs. Lecount interfered with an energy and a resolution inspired by

serious alarm. After the heavy strain that had been laid on his

weakness already, such an outbreak of passionate agitation as was now

bursting from him might be the destruction of his rest that night and

of his strength to travel the next day. With infinite difficulty, with

endless promises to return to the subject, and to advise him about it

in the morning, she prevailed on him, at last, to go upstairs and

compose himself for the night. She gave him her arm to assist him. On

the way upstairs his attention, to her great relief, became suddenly

absorbed by a new fancy. He remembered a certain warm and comfortable

mixture of wine, eggs, sugar, and spices, which she had often been

accustomed to make for him in former times, and which he thought he

should relish exceedingly before he went to bed. Mrs. Lecount helped

him on with his dressing-gown—then went down-stairs again to make his

warm drink for him at the parlor fire.

She rang the bell and ordered the necessary ingredients for the

mixture, in Noel Vanstone’s name. The servants, with the small

ingenious malice of their race, brought up the materials one by one,

and kept her waiting for each of them as long as possible. She had got

the saucepan, and the spoon, and the tumbler, and the nutmeg-grater,

and the wine—but not the egg, the sugar, or the spices—when she heard

him above, walking backward and forward noisily in his room; exciting

himself on the old subject again, beyond all doubt.

She went upstairs once more; but he was too quick for her—he heard her

outside the door; and when she opened it, she found him in his chair,

with his back cunningly turned toward her. Knowing him too well to

attempt any remonstrance, she merely announced the speedy arrival of

the warm drink and turned to leave the room. On her way out, she

noticed a table in a corner, with an inkstand and a paper-case on it,

and tried, without attracting his attention, to take the writing

materials away. He was too quick for her again. He asked, angrily, if

she doubted his promise. She put the writing materials back on the

table, for fear of offending him, and left the room.

In half an hour more the mixture was ready. She carried it up to him,

foaming and fragrant, in a large tumbler. “He will sleep after this,”

she thought to herself, as she opened the door; “I have made it

stronger than usual on purpose.”

He had changed his place. He was sitting at the table in the

corner—still with his back to her, writing. This time his quick ears

had not served him; this time she caught him in the fact.

“Oh, Mr. Noel! Mr. Noel!” she said, reproachfully, “what is your

promise worth?”

He made no answer. He was sitting with his left elbow on the table, and

with his head resting on his left hand. His right hand lay back on the

paper, with the pen lying loose in it. “Your drink, Mr. Noel,” she

said, in a kinder tone, feeling unwilling to offend him. He took no

notice of her. She went to the table to rouse him. Was he deep in

thought?

He was dead!

THE END OF THE FIFTH SCENE.

BETWEEN THE SCENES.

PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.

I.

From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe.

“Park Terrace, St. John’s Wood, November 5th.

“Dear Sir,

“I came to London yesterday for the purpose of seeing a relative,

leaving Mr. Vanstone at Baliol Cottage, and proposing to return to him

in the course of the week. I reached London late last night, and drove

to these lodgings, having written to secure accommodation beforehand.

“This morning’s post has brought me a letter from my own maid, whom I

left at Baliol Cottage, with instructions to write to me if anything

extraordinary took place in my absence. You will find the girl’s letter

inclosed in this. I have had some experience of her; and I believe she

is to be strictly depended on to tell the truth.

“I purposely abstain from troubling you by any useless allusions to

myself. When you have read my maid’s letter, you will understand the

shock which the news contained in it has caused me. I can only repeat

that I place implicit belief in her statement. I am firmly persuaded

that my husband’s former housekeeper has found him out, has practiced

on his weakness in my absence, and has prevailed on him to make another

Will. From what I know of this woman, I feel no doubt that she has used

her influence over Mr. Vanstone to deprive me, if possible, of all

future interests in my husband’s fortune.

“Under such circumstances as these, it is in the last degree

important—for more reasons than I need mention here—that I should see

Mr. Vanstone, and come to an explanation with him, at the earliest

possible opportunity. You will find that my maid thoughtfully kept her

letter open until the last moment before post-time—without, however,

having any later news to give me than that Mrs. Lecount was to sleep at

the cottage last night and that she and Mr. Vanstone were to leave

together this morning. But for that last piece of intelligence, I

should have been on my way back to Scotland before now. As it is, I

cannot decide for myself what I ought to do next. My going back to

Dumfries, after Mr. Vanstone has left it, seems like taking a journey

for nothing —and my staying in London appears to be almost equally

useless.

“Will you kindly advise me in this difficulty? I will come to you at

Lincoln’s Inn at any time this afternoon or to-morrow which you may

appoint. My next few hours are engaged. As soon as this letter is

dispatched, I am going to Kensington, with the object of ascertaining

whether certain doubts I feel about the means by which Mrs. Lecount may

have accomplished her discovery are well founded or not. If you will

let me have your answer by return of post, I will not fail to get back

to St. John’s Wood in time to receive it.

“Believe me, dear sir, yours sincerely,

“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.”

II.

From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone.

“Lincoln’s Inn, November 5th.

“DEAR MADAM,

“Your letter and its inclosure have caused me great concern and

surprise. Pressure of business allows me no hope of being able to see

you either to-day or to-morrow morning. But if three o’clock to-morrow

afternoon will suit you, at that hour you will find me at your service.

“I cannot pretend to offer a positive opinion until I know more of the

particulars connected with this extraordinary business than I find

communicated either in your letter or in your maid’s. But with this

reserve, I venture to suggest that your remaining in London until

to-morrow may possibly lead to other results besides your consultation

at my chambers. There is at least a chance that you or I may hear

something further in this strange matter by the morning’s post.

“I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours,

“JOHN LOSCOMBE.”

III.

From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Miss Garth.

“November 5th, Two o’clock.

“I have just returned from Westmoreland House—after purposely leaving

it in secret, and purposely avoiding you under your own roof. You shall

know why I came, and why I went away. It is due to my remembrance of

old times not to treat you like a stranger, although I can never again

treat you like a friend.

“I set forth on the third from the North to London. My only object in

taking this long journey was to see Norah. I had been suffering for

many weary weeks past such remorse as only miserable women like me can

feel. Perhaps the suffering weakened me; perhaps it roused some old

forgotten tenderness—God knows!—I can’t explain it; I can only tell you

that I began to think of Norah by day, and to dream of Norah by night,

till I was almost heartbroken. I have no better reason than this to

give for running all the risks which I ran, and coming to London to see

her. I don’t wish to claim more for myself than I deserve; I don’t wish

to tell you I was the reformed and repenting creature whom _you_ might

have approved. I had only one feeling in me that I know of. I wanted to

put my arms round Norah’s neck, and cry my heart out on Norah’s bosom.

Childish enough, I dare say. Something might have come of it; nothing

might have come of it—who knows?

“I had no means of finding Norah without your assistance. However you

might disapprove of what I had done, I thought you would not refuse to

help me to find my sister. When I lay down last night in my strange

bed, I said to myself, ‘I will ask Miss Garth, for my father’s sake and

my mother’s sake, to tell me.’ You don’t know what a comfort I felt in

that thought. How should you? What do good women like you know of

miserable sinners like me? All you know is that you pray for us at

church.

“Well, I fell asleep happily that night—for the first time since my

marriage. When the morning came, I paid the penalty of daring to be

happy only for one night. When the morning came, a letter came with it,

which told me that my bitterest enemy on earth (you have meddled

sufficiently with my affairs to know what enemy I mean) had revenged

herself on me in my absence. In following the impulse which led me to

my sister, I had gone to my ruin.

“The mischief was beyond all present remedy, when I received the news

of it. Whatever had happened, whatever might happen, I made up my mind

to persist in my resolution of seeing Norah before I did anything else.

I suspected _you_ of being concerned in the disaster which had

overtaken me—because I felt positively certain at Aldborough that you

and Mrs. Lecount had written to each other. But I never suspected

Norah. If I lay on my death-bed at this moment I could say with a safe

conscience I never suspected Norah.

“So I went this morning to Westmoreland House to ask you for my

sister’s address, and to acknowledge plainly that I suspected you of

being again in correspondence with Mrs. Lecount.

“When I inquired for you at the door, they told me you had gone out,

but that you were expected back before long. They asked me if I would

see your sister, who was then in the school-room. I desired that your

sister should on no account be disturbed: my business was not with her,

but with you. I begged to be allowed to wait in a room by myself until

you returned.

“They showed me into the double room on the ground-floor, divided by

curtains—as it was when I last remember it. There was a fire in the

outer division of the room, but none in the inner; and for that reason,

I suppose, the curtains were drawn. The servant was very civil and

attentive to me. I have learned to be thankful for civility and

attention, and I spoke to her as cheerfully as I could. I said to her,

‘I shall see Miss Garth here, as she comes up to the door, and I can

beckon her in through the long window.’ The servant said I could do so,

if you came that way, but that you let yourself in sometimes with your

own key by the back-garden gate; and if you did this, she would take

care to let you know of my visit. I mention these trifles, to show you

that there was no pre-meditated deceit in my mind when I came to the

house.

“I waited a weary time, and you never came: I don’t know whether my

impatience made me think so, or whether the large fire burning made the

room really as hot as I felt it to be—I only know that, after a while,

I passed through the curtains into the inner room, to try the cooler

atmosphere.

“I walked to the long window which leads into the back garden, to look

out, and almost at the same time I heard the door opened—the door of

the room I had just left, and your voice and the voice of some other

woman, a stranger to me, talking. The stranger was one of the

parlor-boarders, I dare say. I gathered from the first words you

exchanged together, that you had met in the passage—she on her way

downstairs, and you on your way in from the back garden. Her next

question and your next answer informed me that this person was a friend

of my sister’s, who felt a strong interest in her, and who knew that

you had just returned from a visit to Norah. So far, I only hesitated

to show myself, because I shrank, in my painful situation, from facing

a stranger. But when I heard my own name immediately afterward on your

lips and on hers, then I purposely came nearer to the curtain between

us, and purposely listened.

“A mean action, you will say? Call it mean, if you like. What better

can you expect from such a woman as I am?

“You were always famous for your memory. There is no necessity for my

repeating the words you spoke to your friend, and the words your friend

spoke to you, hardly an hour since. When you read these lines, you will

know, as well as I know, what those words told me. I ask for no

particulars; I will take all your reasons and all your excuses for

granted. It is enough for me to know that you and Mr. Pendril have been

searching for me again, and that Norah is in the conspiracy this time,

to reclaim me in spite of myself. It is enough for me to know that my

letter to my sister has been turned into a trap to catch me, and that

Mrs. Lecount’s revenge has accomplished its object by means of

information received from Norah’s lips.

“Shall I tell you what I suffered when I heard these things? No; it

would only be a waste of time to tell you. Whatever I suffer, I deserve

it—don’t I?

“I waited in that inner room—knowing my own violent temper, and not

trusting myself to see you, after what I had heard—I waited in that

inner room, trembling lest the servant should tell you of my visit

before I could find an opportunity of leaving the house. No such

misfortune happened. The servant, no doubt, heard the voices upstairs,

and supposed that we had met each other in the passage. I don’t know

how long or how short a time it was before you left the room to go and

take off your bonnet—you went, and your friend went with you. I raised

the long window softly, and stepped into the back garden. The way by

which you returned to the house was the way by which I left it. No

blame attaches to the servant. As usual, where I am concerned, nobody

is to blame but me.

“Time enough has passed now to quiet my mind a little. You know how

strong I am? You remember how I used to fight against all my illnesses

when I was a child? Now I am a woman, I fight against my miseries in

the same way. Don’t pity me, Miss Garth! Don’t pity me!

“I have no harsh feeling against Norah. The hope I had of seeing her is

a hope taken from me; the consolation I had in writing to her is a

consolation denied me for the future. I am cut to the heart; but I have

no angry feeling toward my sister. She means well, poor soul—I dare say

she means well. It would distress her, if she knew what has happened.

Don’t tell her. Conceal my visit, and burn my letter.

“A last word to yourself and I have done:

“If I rightly understand my present situation, your spies are still

searching for me to just as little purpose as they searched at York.

Dismiss them—you are wasting your money to no purpose. If you

discovered me to-morrow, what could you do? My position has altered. I

am no longer the poor outcast girl, the vagabond public performer, whom

you once hunted after. I have done what I told you I would do—I have

made the general sense of propriety my accomplice this time. Do you

know who I am? I am a respectable married woman, accountable for my

actions to nobody under heaven but my husband. I have got a place in

the world, and a name in the world, at last. Even the law, which is the

friend of all you respectable people, has recognized my existence, and

has become _my_ friend too! The Archbishop of Canterbury gave me his

license to be married, and the vicar of Aldborough performed the

service. If I found your spies following me in the street, and if I

chose to claim protection from them, the law would acknowledge my

claim. You forget what wonders my wickedness has done for me. It has

made Nobody’s Child Somebody’s Wife.

“If you will give these considerations their due weight; if you will

exert your excellent common sense, I have no fear of being obliged to

appeal to my newly-found friend and protector—the law. You will feel,

by this time, that you have meddled with me at last to some purpose. I

am estranged from Norah—I am discovered by my husband—I am defeated by

Mrs. Lecount. You have driven me to the last extremity; you have

strengthened me to fight the battle of my life with the resolution

which only a lost and friendless woman can feel. Badly as your schemes

have prospered, they have not proved totally useless after all!

“I have no more to say. If you ever speak about me to Norah, tell her

that a day may come when she will see me again—the day when we two

sisters have recovered our natural rights; the day when I put Norah’s

fortune into Norah’s hand.

“Those are my last words. Remember them the next time you feel tempted

to meddle with me again.

“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.”

IV.

From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone.

“Lincoln’s Inn, November 6th.

“DEAR MADAM,

“This morning’s post has doubtless brought you the same shocking news

which it has brought to me. You must know by this time that a terrible

affliction has befallen you—the affliction of your husband’s sudden

death.

“I am on the point of starting for the North, to make all needful

inquiries, and to perform whatever duties I may with propriety

undertake, as solicitor to the deceased gentleman. Let me earnestly

recommend you not to follow me to Baliol Cottage, until I have had time

to write to you first, and to give you such advice as I cannot, through

ignorance of all the circumstances, pretend to offer now. You may rely

on my writing, after my arrival in Scotland, by the first post.

“I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours,

“JOHN LOSCOMBE.”

V.

From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth.

“Serle Street, November 6th.

“DEAR MISS GARTH,

“I return you Mrs. Noel Vanstone’s letter. I can understand your

mortification at the tone in which it is written, and your distress at

the manner in which this unhappy woman has interpreted the conversation

that she overheard at your house. I cannot honestly add that I lament

what has happened. My opinion has never altered since the Combe-Raven

time. I believe Mrs. Noel Vanstone to be one of the most reckless,

desperate, and perverted women living; and any circumstances that

estrange her from her sister are circumstances which I welcome, for her

sister’s sake.

“There cannot be a moment’s doubt on the course you ought to follow in

this matter. Even Mrs. Noel Vanstone herself acknowledges the propriety

of sparing her sister additional and unnecessary distress. By all

means, keep Miss Vanstone in ignorance of the visit to Kensington, and

of the letter which has followed it. It would be not only unwise, but

absolutely cruel, to enlighten her. If we had any remedy to apply, or

even any hope to offer, we might feel some hesitation in keeping our

secret. But there is no remedy, and no hope. Mrs. Noel Vanstone is

perfectly justified in the view she takes of her own position. Neither

you nor I can assert the smallest right to control her.

“I have already taken the necessary measures for putting an end to our

useless inquiries. In a few days I will write to Miss Vanstone, and

will do my best to tranquilize her mind on the subject of her sister.

If I can find no sufficient excuse to satisfy her, it will be better

she should think we have discovered nothing than that she should know

the truth.

“Believe me most truly yours,

“WILLIAM PENDRIL.”

VI.

From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone.

“Lincoln’s Inn, November 15th.

“Private.

“DEAR MADAM,

“In compliance with your request, I now proceed to communicate to you

in writing what (but for the calamity which has so recently befallen

you) I should have preferred communicating by word of mouth. Be pleased

to consider this letter as strictly confidential between yourself and

me.

“I enclose, as you desire, a copy of the Will executed by your late

husband on the third of this month. There can be no question of the

genuineness of the original document. I protested, as a matter of form,

against Admiral Bartram’s solicitor assuming a position of authority at

Baliol Cottage. But he took the position, nevertheless; acting as legal

representative of the sole Executor under the second Will. I am bound

to say I should have done the same myself in his place.

“The serious question follows, What can we do for the best in your

interests? The Will executed under my professional superintendence, on

the thirtieth of September last, is at present superseded and revoked

by the second and later Will, executed on the third of November. Can we

dispute this document?

“I doubt the possibility of disputing the new Will on the face of it.

It is no doubt irregularly expressed; but it is dated, signed, and

witnessed as the law directs; and the perfectly simple and

straightforward provisions that it contains are in no respect, that I

can see, technically open to attack.

“This being the case, can we dispute the Will on the ground that it has

been executed when the Testator was not in a fit state to dispose of

his own property? or when the Testator was subjected to undue and

improper influence?

“In the first of these cases, the medical evidence would put an

obstacle in our way. We cannot assert that previous illness had

weakened the Testator’s mind. It is clear that he died suddenly, as the

doctors had all along declared he would die, of disease of the heart.

He was out walking in his garden, as usual, on the day of his death; he

ate a hearty dinner; none of the persons in his service noticed any

change in him; he was a little more irritable with them than usual, but

that was all. It is impossible to attack the state of his faculties:

there is no case to go into court with, so far.

“Can we declare that he acted under undue influence; or, in plainer

terms, under the influence of Mrs. Lecount?

“There are serious difficulties, again, in the way of taking this

course. We cannot assert, for example, that Mrs. Lecount has assumed a

place in the will which she has no fair claim to occupy. She has

cunningly limited her own legacy, not only to what is fairly due her,

but to what the late Mr. Michael Vanstone himself had the intention of

leaving her. If I were examined on the subject, I should be compelled

to acknowledge that I had heard him express this intention myself. It

is only the truth to say that I have heard him express it more than

once. There is no point of attack in Mrs. Lecount’s legacy, and there

is no point of attack in your late husband’s choice of an executor. He

has made the wise choice, and the natural choice, of the oldest and

trustiest friend he had in the world.

“One more consideration remains—the most important which I have yet

approached, and therefore the consideration which I have reserved to

the last. On the thirtieth of September, the Testator executes a will,

leaving his widow sole executrix, with a legacy of eighty thousand

pounds. On the third of November following, he expressly revokes this

will, and leaves another in its stead, in which his widow is never once

mentioned, and in which the whole residue of his estate, after payment

of one comparatively trifling legacy, is left to a friend.

“It rests entirely with you to say whether any valid reason can or

cannot be produced to explain such an extraordinary proceeding as this.

If no reason can be assigned—and I know of none myself—I think we have

a point here which deserves our careful consideration; for it may be a

point which is open to attack. Pray understand that I am now appealing

to you solely as a lawyer, who is obliged to look all possible

eventualities in the face. I have no wish to intrude on your private

affairs; I have no wish to write a word which could be construed into

any indirect reflection on yourself.

“If you tell me that, so far as you know, your husband capriciously

struck you out of his will, without assignable reason or motive for

doing so, and without other obvious explanation of his conduct than

that he acted in this matter entirely under the influence of Mrs.

Lecount, I will immediately take Counsel’s opinion touching the

propriety of disputing the will on this ground. If, on the other hand,

you tell me that there are reasons (known to yourself, though unknown

to me) for not taking the course I propose, I will accept that

intimation without troubling you, unless you wish it, to explain

yourself further. In this latter event, I will write to you again; for

I shall then have something more to say, which may greatly surprise

you, on the subject of the Will.

“Faithfully yours,

“JOHN LOSCOMBE.”

VII.

From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe.

“November 16th.

“DEAR SIR,

“Accept my best thanks for the kindness and consideration with which

you have treated me; and let the anxieties under which I am now

suffering plead my excuse, if I reply to your letter without ceremony,

in the fewest possible words.

“I have my own reasons for not hesitating to answer your question in

the negative. It is impossible for us to go to law, as you propose, on

the subject of the Will.

“Believe me, dear sir, yours gratefully,

“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.”

VIII.

From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone.

“Lincoln’s Inn. November 17th.

“DEAR MADAM,

“I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, answering my proposal

in the negative, for reasons of your own. Under these circumstances—on

which I offer no comment—I beg to perform my promise of again

communicating with you on the subject of your late husband’s Will.

“Be so kind as to look at your copy of the document. You will find that

the clause which devises the whole residue of your husband’s estate to

Admiral Bartram ends in these terms: _to be by him applied to such uses

as he may think fit._

“Simple as they may seem to you, these are very remarkable words. In

the first place, no practical lawyer would have used them in drawing

your husband’s will. In the second place, they are utterly useless to

serve any plain straightforward purpose. The legacy is left

unconditionally to the admiral; and in the same breath he is told that

he may do what he likes with it! The phrase points clearly to one of

two conclusions. It has either dropped from the writer’s pen in pure

ignorance, or it has been carefully set where it appears to serve the

purpose of a snare. I am firmly persuaded that the latter explanation

is the right one. The words are expressly intended to mislead some

person—yourself in all probability—and the cunning which has put them

to that use is a cunning which (as constantly happens when uninstructed

persons meddle with law) has overreached itself. My thirty years’

experience reads those words in a sense exactly opposite to the sense

which they are intended to convey. I say that Admiral Bartram is _not_

free to apply his legacy to such purposes as he may think fit; I

believe he is privately controlled by a supplementary document in the

shape of a Secret Trust.

“I can easily explain to you what I mean by a Secret Trust. It is

usually contained in the form of a letter from a Testator to his

Executors, privately informing them of testamentary intentions on his

part which he has not thought proper openly to acknowledge in his will.

I leave you a hundred pounds; and I write a private letter enjoining

you, on taking the legacy, not to devote it to your own purposes, but

to give it to some third person, whose name I have my own reasons for

not mentioning in my will. That is a Secret Trust.

“If I am right in my own persuasion that such a document as I here

describe is at this moment in Admiral Bartram’s possession—a persuasion

based, in the first instance, on the extraordinary words that I have

quoted to you; and, in the second instance, on purely legal

considerations with which it is needless to incumber my letter—if I am

right in this opinion, the discovery of the Secret Trust would be, in

all probability, a most important discovery to your interests. I will

not trouble you with technical reasons, or with references to my

experience in these matters, which only a professional man could

understand. I will merely say that I don’t give up your cause as

utterly lost, until the conviction now impressed on my own mind is

proved to be wrong.

“I can add no more, while this important question still remains

involved in doubt; neither can I suggest any means of solving that

doubt. If the existence of the Trust was proved, and if the nature of

the stipulations contained in it was made known to me, I could then say

positively what the legal chances were of your being able to set up a

Case on the strength of it: and I could also tell you whether I should

or should not feel justified in personally undertaking that Case under

a private arrangement with yourself.

“As things are, I can make no arrangement, and offer no advice. I can

only put you confidentially in possession of my private opinion,

leaving you entirely free to draw your own inferences from it, and

regretting that I cannot write more confidently and more definitely

than I have written here. All that I could conscientiously say on this

very difficult and delicate subject, I have said.

“Believe me, dear madam, faithfully yours,

“JOHN LOSCOMBE.

“P.S.—I omitted one consideration in my last letter, which I may

mention here, in order to show you that no point in connection with the

case has escaped me. If it had been possible to show that Mr. Vanstone

was _domiciled_ in Scotland at the time of his death, we might have

asserted your interests by means of the Scotch law, which does not

allow a husband the power of absolutely disinheriting his wife. But it

is impossible to assert that Mr. Vanstone was legally domiciled in

Scotland. He came there as a visitor only; he occupied a furnished

house for the season; and he never expressed, either by word or deed,

the slightest intention of settling permanently in the North.”

IX.

From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe.

“DEAR SIR,

“I have read your letter more than once, with the deepest interest and

attention; and the oftener I read it, the more firmly I believe that

there is really such a Letter as you mention in Admiral Bartram’s

hands.

“It is my interest that the discovery should be made, and I at once

acknowledge to you that I am determined to find the means of secretly

and certainly making it. My resolution rests on other motives than the

motives which you might naturally suppose would influence me. I only

tell you this, in case you feel inclined to remonstrate. There is good

reason for what I say, when I assure you that remonstrance will be

useless.

“I ask for no assistance in this matter; I will trouble nobody for

advice. You shall not be involved in any rash proceedings on my part.

Whatever danger there may be, I will risk it. Whatever delays may

happen, I will bear them patiently. I am lonely and friendless, and

surely troubled in mind, but I am strong enough to win my way through

worse trials than these. My spirits will rise again, and my time will

come. If that Secret Trust is in Admiral Bartram’s possession—when you

next see me, you shall see me with it in my own hands.

“Yours gratefully,

“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.”

THE SIXTH SCENE.

ST. JOHN’S WOOD.

CHAPTER I.

It wanted little more than a fortnight to Christmas; but the weather

showed no signs yet of the frost and snow, conventionally associated

with the coming season. The atmosphere was unnaturally warm, and the

old year was dying feebly in sapping rain and enervating mist.

Toward the close of the December afternoon, Magdalen sat alone in the

lodging which she had occupied since her arrival in London. The fire

burned sluggishly in the narrow little grate; the view of the wet

houses and soaking gardens opposite was darkening fast; and the bell of

the suburban muffin-boy tinkled in the distance drearily. Sitting close

over the fire, with a little money lying loose in her lap, Magdalen

absently shifted the coins to and fro on the smooth surface of her

dress, incessantly altering their positions toward each other, as if

they were pieces of a “child’s puzzle” which she was trying to put

together. The dim fire-light flaming up on her faintly from time to

time showed changes which would have told their own tale sadly to

friends of former days. Her dress had become loose through the wasting

of her figure; but she had not cared to alter it. The old restlessness

in her movements, the old mobility in her expression, appeared no more.

Her face passively maintained its haggard composure, its changeless

unnatural calm. Mr. Pendril might have softened his hard sentence on

her, if he had seen her now; and Mrs. Lecount, in the plenitude of her

triumph, might have pitied her fallen enemy at last.

Hardly four months had passed since the wedding-day at Aldborough, and

the penalty for that day was paid already—paid in unavailing remorse,

in hopeless isolation, in irremediable defeat! Let this be said for

her; let the truth which has been told of the fault be told of the

expiation as well. Let it be recorded of her that she enjoyed no secret

triumph on the day of her success. The horror of herself with which her

own act had inspired her, had risen to its climax when the design of

her marriage was achieved. She had never suffered in secret as she

suffered when the Combe-Raven money was left to her in her husband’s

will. She had never felt the means taken to accomplish her end so

unutterably degrading to herself, as she felt them on the day when the

end was reached. Out of that feeling had grown the remorse which had

hurried her to seek pardon and consolation in her sister’s love. Never

since it had first entered her heart, never since she had first felt it

sacred to her at her father’s grave, had the Purpose to which she had

vowed herself, so nearly lost its hold on her as at this time. Never

might Norah’s influence have achieved such good as on the day when that

influence was lost—the day when the fatal words were overheard at Miss

Garth’s—the day when the fatal letter from Scotland told of Mrs.

Lecount’s revenge.

The harm was done; the chance was gone. Time and Hope alike had both

passed her by.

Faintly and more faintly the inner voices now pleaded with her to pause

on the downward way. The discovery which had poisoned her heart with

its first distrust of her sister; the tidings which had followed it of

her husband’s death; the sting of Mrs. Lecount’s triumph, felt through

all, had done their work. The remorse which had embittered her married

life was deadened now to a dull despair. It was too late to make the

atonement of confession—too late to lay bare to the miserable husband

the deeper secrets that had once lurked in the heart of the miserable

wife. Innocent of all thought of the hideous treachery which Mrs.

Lecount had imputed to her—she was guilty of knowing how his health was

broken when she married him; guilty of knowing, when he left her the

Combe-Raven money, that the accident of a moment, harmless to other

men, might place his life in jeopardy, and effect her release. His

death had told her this—had told her plainly what she had shrunk, in

his lifetime, from openly acknowledging to herself. From the dull

torment of that reproach; from the dreary wretchedness of doubting

everybody, even to Norah herself; from the bitter sense of her defeated

schemes; from the blank solitude of her friendless life—what refuge was

left? But one refuge now. She turned to the relentless Purpose which

was hurrying her to her ruin, and cried to it with the daring of her

despair—Drive me on!

For days and days together she had bent her mind on the one object

which occupied it since she had received the lawyer’s letter. For days

and days together she had toiled to meet the first necessity of her

position—to find a means of discovering the Secret Trust. There was no

hope, this time, of assistance from Captain Wragge. Long practice had

made the old militia-man an adept in the art of vanishing. The plow of

the moral agriculturist left no furrows—not a trace of him was to be

found! Mr. Loscombe was too cautious to commit himself to an active

course of any kind; he passively maintained his opinions and left the

rest to his client—-he desired to know nothing until the Trust was

placed in his hands. Magdalen’s interests were now in Magdalen’s own

sole care. Risk or no risk, what she did next she must do by herself.

The prospect had not daunted her. Alone she had calculated the chances

that might be tried. Alone she was now determined to make the attempt.

“The time has come,” she said to herself, as she sat over the fire. “I

must sound Louisa first.”

She collected the scattered coins in her lap, and placed them in a

little heap on the table, then rose and rang the bell. The landlady

answered it.

“Is my servant downstairs?” inquired Magdalen.

“Yes, ma’am. She is having her tea.”

“When she has done, say I want her up here. Wait a moment. You will

find your money on the table—the money I owe you for last week. Can you

find it? or would you like to have a candle?”

“It’s rather dark, ma’am.”

Magdalen lit a candle. “What notice must I give you,” she asked, as she

put the candle on the table, “before I leave?”

“A week is the usual notice, ma’am. I hope you have no objection to

make to the house?”

“None whatever. I only ask the question, because I may be obliged to

leave these lodgings rather sooner than I anticipated. Is the money

right?”

“Quite right, ma’am. Here is your receipt.”

“Thank you. Don’t forget to send Louisa to me as soon as she has done

her tea.”

The landlady withdrew. As soon as she was alone again, Magdalen

extinguished the candle, and drew an empty chair close to her own chair

on the hearth. This done, she resumed her former place, and waited

until Louisa appeared. There was doubt in her face as she sat looking

mechanically into the fire. “A poor chance,” she thought to herself;

“but, poor as it is, a chance that I must try.”

In ten minutes more, Louisa’s meek knock was softly audible outside.

She was surprised, on entering the room, to find no other light in it

than the light of the fire.

“Will you have the candles, ma’am?” she inquired, respectfully.

“We will have candles if you wish for them yourself,” replied Magdalen;

“not otherwise. I have something to say to you. When I have said it,

you shall decide whether we sit together in the dark or in the light.”

Louisa waited near the door, and listened to those strange words in

silent astonishment.

“Come here,” said Magdalen, pointing to the empty chair; “come here and

sit down.”

Louisa advanced, and timidly removed the chair from its position at her

mistress’s side. Magdalen instantly drew it back again. “No!” she said.

“Come closer—come close by me.” After a moment’s hesitation, Louisa

obeyed.

“I ask you to sit near me,” pursued Magdalen, “because I wish to speak

to you on equal terms. Whatever distinctions there might once have been

between us are now at an end. I am a lonely woman thrown helpless on my

own resources, without rank or place in the world. I may or may not

keep you as my friend. As mistress and maid the connection between us

must come to an end.”

“Oh, ma’am, don’t, don’t say that!” pleaded Louisa, faintly.

Magdalen sorrowfully and steadily went on.

“When you first came to me,” she resumed, “I thought I should not like

you. I have learned to like you—I have learned to be grateful to you.

From first to last you have been faithful and good to me. The least I

can do in return is not to stand in the way of your future prospects.”

“Don’t send me away, ma’am!” said Louisa, imploringly. “If you can only

help me with a little money now and then, I’ll wait for my wages—I

will, indeed.”

Magdalen took her hand and went on, as sorrowfully and as steadily as

before.

“My future life is all darkness, all uncertainty,” she said. “The next

step I may take may lead me to my prosperity or may lead me to my ruin.

Can I ask you to share such a prospect as this? If your future was as

uncertain as mine is—if you, too, were a friendless woman thrown on the

world—my conscience might be easy in letting you cast your lot with

mine. I might accept your attachment, for I might feel I was not

wronging you. How can I feel this in your case? You have a future to

look to. You are an excellent servant; you can get another place—a far

better place than mine. You can refer to me; and if the character I

give is not considered sufficient, you can refer to the mistress you

served before me—”

At the instant when that reference to the girl’s last employer escaped

Magdalen’s lips, Louisa snatched her hand away and started up

affrightedly from her chair. There was a moment’s silence. Both

mistress and maid were equally taken by surprise.

Magdalen was the first to recover herself.

“Is it getting too dark?” she asked, significantly. “Are you going to

light the candles, after all?”

Louisa drew back into the dimmest corner of the room.

“You suspect me, ma’am!” she answered out of the darkness, in a

breathless whisper. “Who has told you? How did you find out—?” She

stopped, and burst into tears. “I deserve your suspicion,” she said,

struggling to compose herself. “I can’t deny it to _you_. You have

treated me so kindly; you have made me so fond of you! Forgive me, Mrs.

Vanstone—I am a wretch; I have deceived you.”

“Come here and sit down by me again,” said Magdalen. “Come—or I will

get up myself and bring you back.”

Louisa slowly returned to her place. Dim as the fire-light was, she

seemed to fear it. She held her handkerchief over her face, and shrank

from her mistress as she seated herself again in the chair.

“You are wrong in thinking that any one has betrayed you to me,” said

Magdalen. “All that I know of you is, what your own looks and ways have

told me. You have had some secret trouble weighing on your mind ever

since you have been in my service. I confess I have spoken with the

wish to find out more of you and your past life than I have found out

yet—not because I am curious, but because I have my secret troubles

too. Are you an unhappy woman, like me? If you are, I will take you

into my confidence. If you have nothing to tell me—if you choose to

keep your secret—I don’t blame you; I only say, Let us part. I won’t

ask how you have deceived me. I will only remember that you have been

an honest and faithful and competent servant while I have employed you;

and I will say as much in your favor to any new mistress you like to

send to me.”

She waited for the reply. For a moment, and only for a moment, Louisa

hesitated. The girl’s nature was weak, but not depraved. She was

honestly attached to her mistress; and she spoke with a courage which

Magdalen had not expected from her.

“If you send me away, ma’am,” she said, “I won’t take my character from

you till I have told you the truth; I won’t return your kindness by

deceiving you a second time. Did my master ever tell you how he engaged

me?”

“No. I never asked him, and he never told me.”

“He engaged me, ma’am, with a written character—”

“Yes?”

“The character was a false one.”

Magdalen drew back in amazement. The confession she heard was not the

confession she had anticipated.

“Did your mistress refuse to give you a character?” she asked. “Why?”

Louisa dropped on her knees and hid her face in her mistress’s lap.

“Don’t ask me!” she said. “I’m a miserable, degraded creature; I’m not

fit to be in the same room with you!” Magdalen bent over her, and

whispered a question in her ear. Louisa whispered back the one sad word

of reply.

“Has he deserted you?” asked Magdalen, after waiting a moment, and

thinking first.

“No.”

“Do you love him?”

“Dearly.”

The remembrance of her own loveless marriage stung Magdalen to the

quick.

“For God’s sake, don’t kneel to _me!_” she cried, passionately. “If

there is a degraded woman in this room, I am the woman—not you!”

She raised the girl by main force from her knees, and put her back in

the chair. They both waited a little in silence. Keeping her hand on

Louisa’s shoulder, Magdalen seated herself again, and looked with

unutterable bitterness of sorrow into the dying fire. “Oh,” she

thought, “what happy women there are in the world! Wives who love their

husbands! Mothers who are not ashamed to own their children! Are you

quieter?” she asked, gently addressing Louisa once more. “Can you

answer me, if I ask you something else? Where is the child?”

“The child is out at nurse.”

“Does the father help to support it?”

“He does all he can, ma’am.”

“What is he? Is he in service? Is he in a trade?”

“His father is a master-carpenter—he works in his father’s yard.”

“If he has got work, why has he not married you?”

“It is his father’s fault, ma’am—not his. His father has no pity on us.

He would be turned out of house and home if he married me.”

“Can he get no work elsewhere?”

“It’s hard to get good work in London, ma’am. There are so many in

London—they take the bread out of each other’s mouths. If we had only

had the money to emigrate, he would have married me long since.”

“Would he marry you if you had the money now?”

“I am sure he would, ma’am. He could get plenty of work in Australia,

and double and treble the wages he gets here. He is trying hard, and I

am trying hard, to save a little toward it—I put by all I can spare

from my child. But it is so little! If we live for years to come, there

seems no hope for us. I know I have done wrong every way—I know I don’t

deserve to be happy. But how could I let my child suffer?—I was obliged

to go to service. My mistress was hard on me, and my health broke down

in trying to live by my needle. I would never have deceived anybody by

a false character, if there had been another chance for me. I was alone

and helpless, ma’am; and I can only ask you to forgive me.”

“Ask better women than I am,” said Magdalen, sadly. “I am only fit to

feel for you, and I do feel for you with all my heart. In your place I

should have gone into service with a false character, too. Say no more

of the past—you don’t know how you hurt me in speaking of it. Talk of

the future. I think I can help you, and do you no harm. I think you can

help me, and do me the greatest of all services in return. Wait, and

you shall hear what I mean. Suppose you were married—how much would it

cost for you and your husband to emigrate?”

Louisa mentioned the cost of a steerage passage to Australia for a man

and his wife. She spoke in low, hopeless tones. Moderate as the sum

was, it looked like unattainable wealth in her eyes.

Magdalen started in her chair, and took the girl’s hand once more.

“Louisa!” she said, earnestly; “if I gave you the money, what would you

do for me in return?”

The proposal seemed to strike Louisa speechless with astonishment. She

trembled violently, and said nothing. Magdalen repeated her words.

“Oh, ma’am, do you mean it?” said the girl. “Do you really mean it?”

“Yes,” replied Magdalen; “I really mean it. What would you do for me in

return?”

“Do?” repeated Louisa. “Oh what is there I would _not_ do!” She tried

to kiss her mistress’s hand; but Magdalen would not permit it. She

resolutely, almost roughly, drew her hand away.

“I am laying you under no obligation,” she said. “We are serving each

other—that is all. Sit quiet, and let me think.”

For the next ten minutes there was silence in the room. At the end of

that time Magdalen took out her watch and held it close to the grate.

There was just firelight enough to show her the hour. It was close on

six o’clock.

“Are you composed enough to go downstairs and deliver a message?” she

asked, rising from her chair as she spoke to Louisa again. “It is a

very simple message—it is only to tell the boy that I want a cab as

soon as he can get me one. I must go out immediately. You shall know

why later in the evening. I have much more to say to you; but there is

no time to say it now. When I am gone, bring your work up here, and

wait for my return. I shall be back before bed-time.”

Without another word of explanation, she hurriedly lit a candle and

withdrew into the bedroom to put on her bonnet and shawl.

CHAPTER II.

Between nine and ten o’clock the same evening, Louisa, waiting

anxiously, heard the long-expected knock at the house door. She ran

downstairs at once and let her mistress in.

Magdalen’s face was flushed. She showed far more agitation on returning

to the house than she had shown on leaving it. “Keep your place at the

table,” she said to Louisa, impatiently; “but lay aside your work. I

want you to attend carefully to what I am going to say.”

Louisa obeyed. Magdalen seated herself at the opposite side of the

table, and moved the candles, so as to obtain a clear and uninterrupted

view of her servant’s face.

“Have you noticed a respectable elderly woman,” she began, abruptly,

“who has been here once or twice in the last fortnight to pay me a

visit?”

“Yes, ma’am; I think I let her in the second time she came. An elderly

person named Mrs. Attwood?”

“That is the person I mean. Mrs. Attwood is Mr. Loscombe’s housekeeper;

not the housekeeper at his private residence, but the housekeeper at

his offices in Lincoln’s Inn. I promised to go and drink tea with her

some evening this week, and I have been to-night. It is strange of me,

is it not, to be on these familiar terms with a woman in Mrs. Attwood’s

situation?”

Louisa made no answer in words. Her face spoke for her: she could

hardly avoid thinking it strange.

“I had a motive for making friends with Mrs. Attwood,” Magdalen went

on. “She is a widow, with a large family of daughters. Her daughters

are all in service. One of them is an under-housemaid in the service of

Admiral Bartram, at St. Crux-in-the-Marsh. I found that out from Mrs.

Attwood’s master; and as soon as I arrived at the discovery, I

privately determined to make Mrs. Attwood’s acquaintance. Stranger

still, is it not?”

Louisa began to look a little uneasy. Her mistress’s manner was at

variance with her mistress’s words—it was plainly suggestive of

something startling to come.

“What attraction Mrs. Attwood finds in my society,” Magdalen continued,

“I cannot presume to say. I can only tell you she has seen better days;

she is an educated person; and she may like my society on that account.

At any rate, she has readily met my advances toward her. What

attraction I find in this good woman, on my side, is soon told. I have

a great curiosity—an unaccountable curiosity, you will think—about the

present course of household affairs at St. Crux-in-the-Marsh. Mrs.

Attwood’s daughter is a good girl, and constantly writes to her mother.

Her mother is proud of the letters and proud of the girl, and is ready

enough to talk about her daughter and her daughter’s place. That is

Mrs. Attwood’s attraction to _me._ You understand, so far?”

Yes—Louisa understood. Magdalen went on. “Thanks to Mrs. Attwood and

Mrs. Attwood’s daughter,” she said, “I know some curious particulars

already of the household at St. Crux. Servants’ tongues and servants’

letters—as I need not tell _you_—are oftener occupied with their

masters and mistresses than their masters and mistresses suppose. The

only mistress at St. Crux is the housekeeper. But there is a

master—Admiral Bartram. He appears to be a strange old man, whose whims

and fancies amuse his servants as well as his friends. One of his

fancies (the only one we need trouble ourselves to notice) is, that he

had men enough about him when he was living at sea, and that now he is

living on shore, he will be waited on by women-servants alone. The one

man in the house is an old sailor, who has been all his life with his

master—he is a kind of pensioner at St. Crux, and has little or nothing

to do with the housework. The other servants, indoors, are all women;

and instead of a footman to wait on him at dinner, the admiral has a

parlor-maid. The parlor-maid now at St. Crux is engaged to be married,

and as soon as her master can suit himself she is going away. These

discoveries I made some days since. But when I saw Mrs. Attwood

to-night, she had received another letter from her daughter in the

interval, and that letter has helped me to find out something more. The

housekeeper is at her wits’ end to find a new servant. Her master

insists on youth and good looks—he leaves everything else to the

housekeeper—but he will have that. All the inquiries made in the

neighborhood have failed to produce the sort of parlor-maid whom the

admiral wants. If nothing can be done in the next fortnight or three

weeks, the housekeeper will advertise in the _Times_, and will come to

London herself to see the applicants, and to make strict personal

inquiry into their characters.”

Louisa looked at her mistress more attentively than ever. The

expression of perplexity left her face, and a shade of disappointment

appeared there in its stead. “Bear in mind what I have said,” pursued

Magdalen; “and wait a minute more, while I ask you some questions.

Don’t think you understand me yet—I can assure you, you don’t

understand me. Have you always lived in service as lady’s maid?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Have you ever lived as parlor-maid?”

“Only in one place, ma’am, and not for long there.”

“I suppose you lived long enough to learn your duties?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What were your duties besides waiting at table?”

“I had to show visitors in.”

“Yes; and what else?”

“I had the plate and the glass to look after; and the table-linen was

all under my care. I had to answer all the bells, except in the

bedrooms. There were other little odds and ends sometimes to do—”

“But your regular duties were the duties you have just mentioned?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How long ago is it since you lived in service as a parlor-maid?”

“A little better than two years, ma’am.”

“I suppose you have not forgotten how to wait at table, and clean

plate, and the rest of it, in that time?”

At this question Louisa’s attention, which had been wandering more and

more during the progress of Magdalen’s inquiries, wandered away

altogether. Her gathering anxieties got the better of her discretion,

and even of her timidity. Instead of answering her mistress, she

suddenly and confusedly ventured on a question of her own.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” she said. “Did you mean me to offer for the

parlor-maid’s place at St. Crux?”

“You?” replied Magdalen. “Certainly not! Have you forgotten what I said

to you in this room before I went out? I mean you to be married, and go

to Australia with your husband and your child. You have not waited as I

told you, to hear me explain myself. You have drawn your own

conclusions, and you have drawn them wrong. I asked a question just

now, which you have not answered—I asked if you had forgotten your

parlor-maid’s duties?”

“Oh, no, ma’am!” Louisa had replied rather unwillingly thus far. She

answered readily and confidently now.

“Could you teach the duties to another servant?” asked Magdalen.

“Yes, ma’am—easily, if she was quick and attentive.”

“Could you teach the duties to Me?”

Louisa started, and changed color. “You, ma’am!” she exclaimed, half in

incredulity, half in alarm.

“Yes,” said Magdalen. “Could you qualify me to take the parlor-maid’s

place at St. Crux?”

Plain as those words were, the bewilderment which they produced in

Louisa’s mind seemed to render her incapable of comprehending her

mistress’s proposal. “You, ma’am!” she repeated, vacantly.

“I shall perhaps help you to understand this extraordinary project of

mine,” said Magdalen, “if I tell you plainly what the object of it is.

Do you remember what I said to you about Mr. Vanstone’s will when you

came here from Scotland to join me?”

“Yes, ma’am. You told me you had been left out of the will altogether.

I’m sure my fellow-servant would never have been one of the witnesses

if she had known—”

“Never mind that now. I don’t blame your fellow-servant—I blame nobody

but Mrs. Lecount. Let me go on with what I was saying. It is not at all

certain that Mrs. Lecount can do me the mischief which Mrs. Lecount

intended. There is a chance that my lawyer, Mr. Loscombe, may be able

to gain me what is fairly my due, in spite of the will. The chance

turns on my discovering a letter which Mr. Loscombe believes, and which

I believe, to be kept privately in Admiral Bartram’s possession. I have

not the least hope of getting at that letter if I make the attempt in

my own person. Mrs. Lecount has poisoned the admiral’s mind against me,

and Mr. Vanstone has given him a secret to keep from me. If I wrote to

him, he would not answer my letter. If I went to his house, the door

would be closed in my face. I must find my way into St. Crux as a

stranger—I must be in a position to look about the house, unsuspected—I

must be there with plenty of time on my hands. All the circumstances

are in my favor, if I am received into the house as a servant; and as a

servant I mean to go.”

“But you are a lady, ma’am,” objected Louisa, in the greatest

perplexity. “The servants at St. Crux would find you out.”

“I am not at all afraid of their finding me out,” said Magdalen. “I

know how to disguise myself in other people’s characters more cleverly

than you suppose. Leave me to face the chances of discovery—that is my

risk. Let us talk of nothing now but what concerns _you._ Don’t decide

yet whether you will, or will not, give me the help I want. Wait, and

hear first what the help is. You are quick and clever at your needle.

Can you make me the sort of gown which it is proper for a servant to

wear—and can you alter one of my best silk dresses so as to make it fit

yourself —in a week’s time?”

“I think I could get them done in a week, ma’am. But why am I to wear—”

“Wait a little, and you will see. I shall give the landlady her week’s

notice to-morrow. In the interval, while you are making the dresses, I

can be learning the parlor-maid’s duties. When the house-servant here

has brought up the dinner, and when you and I are alone in the

room—instead of your waiting on me, as usual, I will wait on you. (I am

quite serious; don’t interrupt me!) Whatever I can learn besides,

without hindering you, I will practice carefully at every opportunity.

When the week is over, and the dresses are done, we will leave this

place, and go into other lodgings—you as the mistress and I as the

maid.”

“I should be found out, ma’am,” interposed Louisa, trembling at the

prospect before her. “I am not a lady.”

“And I am,” said Magdalen, bitterly. “Shall I tell you what a lady is?

A lady is a woman who wears a silk gown, and has a sense of her own

importance. I shall put the gown on your back, and the sense in your

head. You speak good English; you are naturally quiet and

self-restrained; if you can only conquer your timidity, I have not the

least fear of you. There will be time enough in the new lodging for you

to practice your character, and for me to practice mine. There will be

time enough to make some more dresses—another gown for me, and your

wedding-dress (which I mean to give you) for yourself. I shall have the

newspaper sent every day. When the advertisement appears, I shall

answer it—in any name I can take on the spur of the moment; in your

name, if you like to lend it to me; and when the housekeeper asks me

for my character, I shall refer her to you. She will see you in the

position of mistress, and me in the position of maid—no suspicion can

possibly enter her mind, unless you put it there. If you only have the

courage to follow my instructions, and to say what I shall tell you to

say, the interview will be over in ten minutes.”

“You frighten me, ma’am,” said Louisa, still trembling. “You take my

breath away with surprise. Courage! Where shall I find courage?”

“Where I keep it for you,” said Magdalen—“in the passage-money to

Australia. Look at the new prospect which gives you a husband, and

restores you to your child—and you will find your courage there.”

Louisa’s sad face brightened; Louisa’s faint heart beat quick. A spark

of her mistress’s spirit flew up into her eyes as she thought of the

golden future.

“If you accept my proposal,” pursued Magdalen, “you can be asked in

church at once, if you like. I promise you the money on the day when

the advertisement appears in the newspaper. The risk of the

housekeeper’s rejecting me is my risk—not yours. My good looks are

sadly gone off, I know. But I think I can still hold my place against

the other servants—I think I can still _look_ the parlor-maid whom

Admiral Bartram wants. There is nothing for you to fear in this matter;

I should not have mentioned it if there had been. The only danger is

the danger of my being discovered at St. Crux, and that falls entirely

on me. By the time I am in the admiral’s house you will be married, and

the ship will be taking you to your new life.”

Louisa’s face, now brightening with hope, now clouding again with fear,

showed plain signs of the struggle which it cost her to decide. She

tried to gain time; she attempted confusedly to speak a few words of

gratitude; but her mistress silenced her.

“You owe me no thanks,” said Magdalen. “I tell you again, we are only

helping each other. I have very little money, but it is enough for your

purpose, and I give it you freely. I have led a wretched life; I have

made others wretched about me. I can’t even make you happy, except by

tempting you to a new deceit. There! there! it’s not your fault. Worse

women than you are will help me, if you refuse. Decide as you like, but

don’t be afraid of taking the money. If I succeed, I shall not want it.

If I fail—”

She stopped, rose abruptly from her chair, and hid her face from Louisa

by walking away to the fire-place.

“If I fail,” she resumed, warming her foot carelessly at the fender,

“all the money in the world will be of no use to me. Never mind

why—never mind Me—think of yourself. I won’t take advantage of the

confession you have made to me; I won’t influence you against your

will. Do as you yourself think best. But remember one thing—my mind is

made up; nothing you can say or do will change it.”

Her sudden removal from the table, the altered tones of her voice as

she spoke the last words, appeared to renew Louisa’s hesitation. She

clasped her hands together in her lap, and wrung them hard. “This has

come on me very suddenly, ma’am,” said the girl. “I am sorely tempted

to say Yes; and yet I am almost afraid—”

“Take the night to consider it,” interposed Magdalen, keeping her face

persistently turned toward the fire; “and tell me what you have decided

to do, when you come into my room to-morrow morning. I shall want no

help to-night—I can undress myself. You are not so strong as I am; you

are tired, I dare say. Don’t sit up on my account. Good-night, Louisa,

and pleasant dreams!”

Her voice sank lower and lower as she spoke those kind words. She

sighed heavily, and, leaning her arm on the mantel-piece, laid her head

on it with a reckless weariness miserable to see. Louisa had not left

the room, as she supposed—Louisa came softly to her side, and kissed

her hand. Magdalen started; but she made no attempt, this time, to draw

her hand away. The sense of her own horrible isolation subdued her, at

the touch of the servant’s lips. Her proud heart melted; her eyes

filled with burning tears. “Don’t distress me!” she said, faintly. “The

time for kindness has gone by; it only overpowers me now. Good-night!”

When the morning came, the affirmative answer which Magdalen had

anticipated was the answer given.

On that day the landlady received her week’s notice to quit, and

Louisa’s needle flew fast through the stitches of the parlor-maid’s

dress.

THE END OF THE SIXTH SCENE.

BETWEEN THE SCENES.

PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.

I.

From Miss Garth to Mr. Pendril.

“Westmoreland House,

January 3d, 1848.

“Dear Mr. Pendril,

“I write, as you kindly requested, to report how Norah is going on, and

to tell you what changes I see for the better in the state of her mind

on the subject of her sister.

“I cannot say that she is becoming resigned to Magdalen’s continued

silence—I know her faithful nature too well to say it. I can only tell

you that she is beginning to find relief from the heavy pressure of

sorrow and suspense in new thoughts and new hopes. I doubt if she has

yet realized this in her own mind; but I see the result, although she

is not conscious of it herself. I see her heart opening to the

consolation of another interest and another love. She has not said a

word to me on the subject, nor have I said a word to her. But as

certainly as I know that Mr. George Bartram’s visits have lately grown

more and more frequent to the family at Portland Place—so certainly I

can assure you that Norah is finding a relief under her suspense, which

is not of my bringing, and a hope in the future, which I have not

taught her to feel.

“It is needless for me to say that I tell you this in the strictest

confidence. God knows whether the happy prospect which seems to me to

be just dawning will grow brighter or not as time goes on. The oftener

I see Mr. George Bartram—and he has called on me more than once—the

stronger my liking for him grows. To my poor judgment he seems to be a

gentleman in the highest and truest sense of the word. If I could live

to see Norah his wife, I should almost feel that I had lived long

enough. But who can discern the future? We have suffered so much that I

am afraid to hope.

“Have you heard anything of Magdalen? I don’t know why or how it is;

but since I have known of her husband’s death, my old tenderness for

her seems to cling to me more obstinately than ever.

“Always yours truly,

“HARRIET GARTH.”

II.

From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth.

“Serle Street, January 4th, 1848.

“DEAR MISS GARTH,

“Of Mrs. Noel Vanstone herself I have heard nothing. But I have

learned, since I saw you, that the report of the position in which she

is left by the death of her husband may be depended upon as the truth.

No legacy of any kind is bequeathed to her. Her name is not once

mentioned in her husband’s will.

“Knowing what we know, it is not to be concealed that this circumstance

threatens us with more embarrassment, and perhaps with more distress.

Mrs. Noel Vanstone is not the woman to submit, without a desperate

resistance, to the total overthrow of all her schemes and all her

hopes. The mere fact that nothing whatever has been heard of her since

her husband’s death is suggestive to my mind of serious mischief to

come. In her situation, and with her temper, the quieter she is now,

the more inveterately I, for one, distrust her in the future. It is

impossible to say to what violent measures her present extremity may

not drive her. It is impossible to feel sure that she may not be the

cause of some public scandal this time, which may affect her innocent

sister as well as herself.

“I know you will not misinterpret the motive which has led me to write

these lines; I know you will not think that I am inconsiderate enough

to cause you unnecessary alarm. My sincere anxiety to see that happy

prospect realized to which your letter alludes has caused me to write

far less reservedly than I might otherwise have written. I strongly

urge you to use your influence, on every occasion when you can fairly

exert it, to strengthen that growing attachment, and to place it beyond

the reach of any coming disasters, while you have the opportunity of

doing so. When I tell you that the fortune of which Mrs. Noel Vanstone

has been deprived is entirely bequeathed to Admiral Bartram; and when I

add that Mr. George Bartram is generally understood to be his uncle’s

heir—you will, I think, acknowledge that I am not warning you without a

cause.

“Yours most truly,

“WILLIAM PENDRIL.”

III.

From Admiral Bartram to Mrs. Drake

(housekeeper at St. Crux).

“St. Crux, January 10th, 1848.

“MRS. DRAKE,

“I have received your letter from London, stating that you have found

me a new parlor-maid at last, and that the girl is ready to return with

you to St. Crux when your other errands in town allow you to come back.

“This arrangement must be altered immediately, for a reason which I am

heartily sorry to have to write.

“The illness of my niece, Mrs. Girdlestone—which appeared to be so

slight as to alarm none of us, doctors included—has ended fatally. I

received this morning the shocking news of her death. Her husband is

said to be quite frantic with grief. Mr. George has already gone to his

brother-in-law’s, to superintend the last melancholy duties and I must

follow him before the funeral takes place. We propose to take Mr.

Girdlestone away afterward, and to try the effect on him of change of

place and new scenes. Under these sad circumstances, I may be absent

from St. Crux a month or six weeks at least; the house will be shut up,

and the new servant will not be wanted until my return.

“You will therefore tell the girl, on receiving this letter, that a

death in the family has caused a temporary change in our arrangements.

If she is willing to wait, you may safely engage her to come here in

six weeks’ time; I shall be back then, if Mr. George is not. If she

refuses, pay her what compensation is right, and so have done with her.

“Yours,

“ARTHUR BARTRAM.”

IV.

From Mrs. Drake to Admiral Bartram.

“January 11th.

“HONORED SIR,

“I hope to get my errands done, and to return to St. Crux to-morrow,

but write to save you anxiety, in case of delay.

“The young woman whom I have engaged (Louisa by name) is willing to

wait your time; and her present mistress, taking an interest in her

welfare, will provide for her during the interval. She understands that

she is to enter on her new service in six weeks from the present

date—namely, on the twenty-fifth of February next.

“Begging you will accept my respectful sympathy under the sad

bereavement which has befallen the family,

“I remain, honored sir, your humble servant,

“SOPHIA DRAKE.”

THE SEVENTH SCENE.

ST. CRUX-IN-THE-MARSH.

CHAPTER I.

“This is where you are to sleep. Put yourself tidy, and then come down

again to my room. The admiral has returned, and you will have to begin

by waiting on him at dinner to-day.”

With those words, Mrs. Drake, the housekeeper, closed the door; and the

new parlor-maid was left alone in her bed-chamber at St. Crux.

That day was the eventful twenty-fifth of February. In barely four

months from the time when Mrs. Lecount had placed her master’s private

Instructions in his Executor’s hands, the one combination of

circumstances against which it had been her first and foremost object

to provide was exactly the combination which had now taken place. Mr.

Noel Vanstone’s widow and Admiral Bartram’s Secret Trust were together

in the same house.

Thus far, events had declared themselves without an exception in

Magdalen’s favor. Thus far, the path which had led her to St. Crux had

been a path without an obstacle: Louisa, whose name she had now taken,

had sailed three days since for Australia, with her husband and her

child; she was the only living creature whom Magdalen had trusted with

her secret, and she was by this time out of sight of the English land.

The girl had been careful, reliable and faithfully devoted to her

mistress’s interests to the last. She had passed the ordeal of her

interview with the housekeeper, and had forgotten none of the

instructions by which she had been prepared to meet it. She had herself

proposed to turn the six weeks’ delay, caused by the death in the

admiral’s family, to good account, by continuing the all-important

practice of those domestic lessons, on the perfect acquirement of which

her mistress’s daring stratagem depended for its success. Thanks to the

time thus gained, when Louisa’s marriage was over, and the day of

parting had come, Magdalen had learned and mastered, in the nicest

detail, everything that her former servant could teach her. On the day

when she passed the doors of St. Crux she entered on her desperate

venture, strong in the ready presence of mind under emergencies which

her later life had taught her, stronger still in the trained capacity

that she possessed for the assumption of a character not her own,

strongest of all in her two months’ daily familiarity with the

practical duties of the position which she had undertaken to fill.

As soon as Mrs. Drake’s departure had left her alone, she unpacked her

box, and dressed herself for the evening.

She put on a lavender-colored stuff-gown—half-mourning for Mrs.

Girdlestone; ordered for all the servants, under the admiral’s

instructions—a white muslin apron, and a neat white cap and collar,

with ribbons to match the gown. In this servant’s costume—in the plain

gown fastening high round her neck, in the neat little white cap at the

back of her head—in this simple dress, to the eyes of all men, not

linen-drapers, at once the most modest and the most alluring that a

woman can wear, the sad changes which mental suffering had wrought in

her beauty almost disappeared from view. In the evening costume of a

lady, with her bosom uncovered, with her figure armed, rather than

dressed, in unpliable silk, the admiral might have passed her by

without notice in his own drawing-room. In the evening costume of a

servant, no admirer of beauty could have looked at her once and not

have turned again to look at her for the second time.

Descending the stairs, on her way to the house-keeper’s room, she

passed by the entrances to two long stone corridors, with rows of doors

opening on them; one corridor situated on the second, and one on the

first floor of the house. “Many rooms!” she thought, as she looked at

the doors. “Weary work searching here for what I have come to find!”