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<h2> CHAPTER III. </h2>
<p>"MISS GARTH, sir," said Mrs. Lecount, opening the parlor door, and
announcing the visitor's appearance with the tone and manner of a
well-bred servant.</p>
<p>Magdalen found herself in a long, narrow room, consisting of a back parlor
and a front parlor, which had been thrown into one by opening the
folding-doors between them. Seated not far from the front window, with his
back to the light, she saw a frail, flaxen-haired, self-satisfied little
man, clothed in a fair white dressing-gown many sizes too large for him,
with a nosegay of violets drawn neatly through the button-hole over his
breast. He looked from thirty to five-and-thirty years old. His complexion
was as delicate as a young girl's, his eyes were of the lightest blue, his
upper lip was adorned by a weak little white mustache, waxed and twisted
at either end into a thin spiral curl. When any object specially attracted
his attention he half closed his eyelids to look at it. When he smiled,
the skin at his temples crumpled itself up into a nest of wicked little
wrinkles. He had a plate of strawberries on his lap, with a napkin under
them to preserve the purity of his white dressing-gown. At his right hand
stood a large round table, covered with a collection of foreign
curiosities, which seemed to have been brought together from the four
quarters of the globe. Stuffed birds from Africa, porcelain monsters from
China, silver ornaments and utensils from India and Peru, mosaic work from
Italy, and bronzes from France, were all heaped together pell-mell with
the coarse deal boxes and dingy leather cases which served to pack them
for traveling. The little man apologized, with a cheerful and simpering
conceit, for his litter of curiosities, his dressing-gown, and his
delicate health; and, waving his hand toward a chair, placed his
attention, with pragmatical politeness, at the visitor's disposal.
Magdalen looked at him with a momentary doubt whether Mrs. Lecount had not
deceived her. Was this the man who mercilessly followed the path on which
his merciless father had walked before him? She could hardly believe it.
"Take a seat, Miss Garth," he repeated, observing her hesitation, and
announcing his own name in a high, thin, fretfully-consequential voice: "I
am Mr. Noel Vanstone. You wished to see me—here I am!"</p>
<p>"May I be permitted to retire, sir?" inquired Mrs. Lecount.</p>
<p>"Certainly not!" replied her master. "Stay here, Lecount, and keep us
company. Mrs. Lecount has my fullest confidence," he continued, addressing
Magdalen. "Whatever you say to me, ma'am, you say to her. She is a
domestic treasure. There is not another house in England has such a
treasure as Mrs. Lecount."</p>
<p>The housekeeper listened to the praise of her domestic virtues with eyes
immovably fixed on her elegant chemisette. But Magdalen's quick
penetration had previously detected a look that passed between Mrs.
Lecount and her master, which suggested that Noel Vanstone had been
instructed beforehand what to say and do in his visitor's presence. The
suspicion of this, and the obstacles which the room presented to arranging
her position in it so as to keep her face from the light, warned Magdalen
to be on her guard.</p>
<p>She had taken her chair at first nearly midway in the room. An instant's
after-reflection induced her to move her seat toward the left hand, so as
to place herself just inside, and close against, the left post of the
folding-door. In this position she dexterously barred the only passage by
which Mrs. Lecount could have skirted round the large table and contrived
to front Magdalen by taking a chair at her master's side. On the right
hand of the table the empty space was well occupied by the fireplace and
fender, by some traveling-trunks, and a large packing-case. There was no
alternative left for Mrs. Lecount but to place herself on a line with
Magdalen against the opposite post of the folding-door, or to push rudely
past the visitor with the obvious intention of getting in front of her.
With an expressive little cough, and with one steady look at her master,
the housekeeper conceded the point, and took her seat against the
right-hand door-post. "Wait a little," thought Mrs. Lecount; "my turn
next!"</p>
<p>"Mind what you are about, ma'am!" cried Noel Vanstone, as Magdalen
accidentally approached the table in moving her chair. "Mind the sleeve of
your cloak! Excuse me, you nearly knocked down that silver candlestick.
Pray don't suppose it's a common candlestick. It's nothing of the sort—it's
a Peruvian candlestick. There are only three of that pattern in the world.
One is in the possession of the President of Peru; one is locked up in the
Vatican; and one is on My table. It cost ten pounds; it's worth fifty. One
of my father's bargains, ma'am. All these things are my father's bargains.
There is not another house in England which has such curiosities as these.
Sit down, Lecount; I beg you will make yourself comfortable. Mrs. Lecount
is like the curiosities, Miss Garth—she is one of my father's
bargains. You are one of my father's bargains, are you not, Lecount? My
father was a remarkable man, ma'am. You will be reminded of him here at
every turn. I have got his dressing-gown on at this moment. No such linen
as this is made now—you can't get it for love or money. Would you
like to feel the texture? Perhaps you're no judge of texture? Perhaps you
would prefer talking to me about these two pupils of yours? They are two,
are they not? Are they fine girls? Plump, fresh, full-blown English
beauties?"</p>
<p>"Excuse me, sir," interposed Mrs. Lecount, sorrowfully. "I must really beg
permission to retire if you speak of the poor things in that way. I can't
sit by, sir, and hear them turned into ridicule. Consider their position;
consider Miss Garth."</p>
<p>"You good creature!" said Noel Vanstone, surveying the housekeeper through
his half-closed eyelids. "You excellent Lecount! I assure you, ma'am, Mrs.
Lecount is a worthy creature. You will observe that she pities the two
girls. I don't go so far as that myself, but I can make allowances for
them. I am a large-minded man. I can make allowances for them and for
you." He smiled with the most cordial politeness, and helped himself to a
strawberry from the dish on his lap.</p>
<p>"You shock Miss Garth; indeed, sir, without meaning it, you shock Miss
Garth," remonstrated Mrs. Lecount. "She is not accustomed to you as I am.
Consider Miss Garth, sir. As a favor to <i>me</i>, consider Miss Garth."</p>
<p>Thus far Magdalen had resolutely kept silence. The burning anger, which
would have betrayed her in an instant if she had let it flash its way to
the surface, throbbed fast and fiercely at her heart, and warned her,
while Noel Vanstone was speaking, to close her lips. She would have
allowed him to talk on uninterruptedly for some minutes more if Mrs.
Lecount had not interfered for the second time. The refined insolence of
the housekeeper's pity was a woman's insolence; and it stung her into
instantly controlling herself. She had never more admirably imitated Miss
Garth's voice and manner than when she spoke her next words.</p>
<p>"You are very good," she said to Mrs. Lecount. "I make no claim to be
treated with any extraordinary consideration. I am a governess, and I
don't expect it. I have only one favor to ask. I beg Mr. Noel Vanstone,
for his own sake, to hear what I have to say to him."</p>
<p>"You understand, sir?" observed Mrs. Lecount. "It appears that Miss Garth
has some serious warning to give you. She says you are to hear her, for
your own sake."</p>
<p>Mr. Noel Vanstone's fair complexion suddenly turned white. He put away the
plate of strawberries among his father's bargains. His hand shook and his
little figure twisted itself uneasily in the chair. Magdalen observed him
attentively. "One discovery already," she thought; "he is a coward!"</p>
<p>"What do you mean, ma'am?" asked Noel Vanstone, with visible trepidation
of look and manner. "What do you mean by telling me I must listen to you
for my own sake? If you come her to intimidate me, you come to the wrong
man. My strength of character was universally noticed in our circle at
Zurich—wasn't it, Lecount?"</p>
<p>"Universally, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "But let us hear Miss Garth.
Perhaps I have misinterpreted her meaning."</p>
<p>"On the contrary," replied Magdalen, "you have exactly expressed my
meaning. My object in coming here is to warn Mr. Noel Vanstone against the
course which he is now taking."</p>
<p>"Don't!" pleaded Mrs. Lecount. "Oh, if you want to help these poor girls,
don't talk in that way! Soften his resolution, ma'am, by entreaties; don't
strengthen it by threats!" She a little overstrained the tone of humility
in which she spoke those words—a little overacted the look of
apprehension which accompanied them. If Magdalen had not seen plainly
enough already that it was Mrs. Lecount's habitual practice to decide
everything for her master in the first instance, and then to persuade him
that he was not acting under his housekeeper's resolution but under his
own, she would have seen it now.</p>
<p>"You hear what Lecount has just said?" remarked Noel Vanstone. "You hear
the unsolicited testimony of a person who has known me from childhood?
Take care, Miss Garth—take care!" He complacently arranged the tails
of his white dressing-gown over his knees and took the plate of
strawberries back on his lap.</p>
<p>"I have no wish to offend you," said Magdalen. "I am only anxious to open
your eyes to the truth. You are not acquainted with the characters of the
two sisters whose fortunes have fallen into your possession. I have known
them from childhood; and I come to give you the benefit of my experience
in their interests and in yours. You have nothing to dread from the elder
of the two; she patiently accepts the hard lot which you, and your father
before you, have forced on her. The younger sister's conduct is the very
opposite of this. She has already declined to submit to your father's
decision, and she now refuses to be silenced by Mrs. Lecount's letter.
Take my word for it, she is capable of giving you serious trouble if you
persist in making an enemy of her."</p>
<p>Noel Vanstone changed color once more, and began to fidget again in his
chair. "Serious trouble," he repeated, with a blank look. "If you mean
writing letters, ma'am, she has given trouble enough already. She has
written once to me, and twice to my father. One of the letters to my
father was a threatening letter—wasn't it, Lecount?"</p>
<p>"She expressed her feelings, poor child," said Mrs. Lecount. "I thought it
hard to send her back her letter, but your dear father knew best. What I
said at the time was, Why not let her express her feelings? What are a few
threatening words, after all? In her position, poor creature, they are
words, and nothing more."</p>
<p>"I advise you not to be too sure of that," said Magdalen. "I know her
better than you do."</p>
<p>She paused at those words—paused in a momentary terror. The sting of
Mrs. Lecount's pity had nearly irritated her into forgetting her assumed
character, and speaking in her own voice.</p>
<p>"You have referred to the letters written by my pupil," she resumed,
addressing Noel Vanstone as soon as she felt sure of herself again. "We
will say nothing about what she has written to your father; we will only
speak of what she has written to you. Is there anything unbecoming in her
letter, anything said in it that is false? Is it not true that these two
sisters have been cruelly deprived of the provision which their father
made for them? His will to this day speaks for him and for them; and it
only speaks to no purpose, because he was not aware that his marriage
obliged him to make it again, and because he died before he could remedy
the error. Can you deny that?"</p>
<p>Noel Vanstone smiled, and helped himself to a strawberry. "I don't attempt
to deny it," he said. "Go on, Miss Garth."</p>
<p>"Is it not true," persisted Magdalen, "that the law which has taken the
money from these sisters, whose father made no second will, has now given
that very money to you, whose father made no will at all? Surely, explain
it how you may, this is hard on those orphan girls?"</p>
<p>"Very hard," replied Noel Vanstone. "It strikes you in that light, too—doesn't
it, Lecount?"</p>
<p>Mrs. Lecount shook her head, and closed her handsome black eyes.
"Harrowing," she said; "I can characterize it, Miss Garth, by no other
word—harrowing. How the young person—no! how Miss Vanstone,
the younger—discovered that my late respected master made no will I
am at a loss to understand. Perhaps it was put in the papers? But I am
interrupting you, Miss Garth. Do have something more to say about your
pupil's letter?" She noiselessly drew her chair forward, as she said these
words, a few inches beyond the line of the visitor's chair. The attempt
was neatly made, but it proved useless. Magdalen only kept her head more
to the left, and the packing-case on the floor prevented Mrs. Lecount from
advancing any further.</p>
<p>"I have only one more question to put," said Magdalen. "My pupil's letter
addressed a proposal to Mr. Noel Vanstone. I beg him to inform me why he
has refused to consider it."</p>
<p>"My good lady!" cried Noel Vanstone, arching his white eyebrows in
satirical astonishment. "Are you really in earnest? Do you know what the
proposal is? Have you seen the letter?"</p>
<p>"I am quite in earnest," said Magdalen, "and I have seen the letter. It
entreats you to remember how Mr. Andrew Vanstone's fortune has come into
your hands; it informs you that one-half of that fortune, divided between
his daughters, was what his will intended them to have; and it asks of
your sense of justice to do for his children what he would have done for
them himself if he had lived. In plainer words still, it asks you to give
one-half of the money to the daughters, and it leaves you free to keep the
other half yourself. That is the proposal. Why have you refused to
consider it?"</p>
<p>"For the simplest possible reason, Miss Garth," said Noel Vanstone, in
high good-humor. "Allow me to remind you of a well-known proverb: A fool
and his money are soon parted. Whatever else I may be, ma'am, I'm not a
fool."</p>
<p>"Don't put it in that way, sir!" remonstrated Mrs. Lecount. "Be serious—pray
be serious!"</p>
<p>"Quite impossible, Lecount," rejoined her master. "I can't be serious. My
poor father, Miss Garth, took a high moral point of view in this matter.
Lecount, there, takes a high moral point of view—don't you, Lecount?
I do nothing of the sort. I have lived too long in the Continental
atmosphere to trouble myself about moral points of view. My course in this
business is as plain as two and two make four. I have got the money, and I
should be a born idiot if I parted with it. There is my point of view!
Simple enough, isn't it? I don't stand on my dignity; I don't meet you
with the law, which is all on my side; I don't blame your coming here, as
a total stranger, to try and alter my resolution; I don't blame the two
girls for wanting to dip their fingers into my purse. All I say is, I am
not fool enough to open it. <i>Pas si bete</i>, as we used to say in the
English circle at Zurich. You understand French, Miss Garth? <i>Pas si
bete!</i>" He set aside his plate of strawberries once more, and daintily
dried his fingers on his fine white napkin.</p>
<p>Magdalen kept her temper. If she could have struck him dead by lifting her
hand at that moment, it is probable she would have lifted it. But she kept
her temper.</p>
<p>"Am I to understand," she asked, "that the last words you have to say in
this matter are the words said for you in Mrs. Lecount's letter!"</p>
<p>"Precisely so," replied Noel Vanstone.</p>
<p>"You have inherited your own father's fortune, as well as the fortune of
Mr. Andrew Vanstone, and yet you feel no obligation to act from motives of
justice or generosity toward these two sisters? All you think it necessary
to say to them is, you have got the money, and you refuse to part with a
single farthing of it?"</p>
<p>"Most accurately stated! Miss Garth, you are a woman of business. Lecount,
Miss Garth is a woman of business."</p>
<p>"Don't appeal to me, sir," cried Mrs. Lecount, gracefully wringing her
plump white hands. "I can't bear it! I must interfere! Let me suggest—oh,
what do you call it in English?—a compromise. Dear Mr. Noel, you are
perversely refusing to do yourself justice; you have better reasons than
the reason you have given to Miss Garth. You follow your honored father's
example; you feel it due to his memory to act in this matter as he acted
before you. That is his reason, Miss Garth—— I implore you on
my knees to take that as his reason. He will do what his dear father did;
no more, no less. His dear father made a proposal, and he himself will now
make that proposal over again. Yes, Mr. Noel, you will remember what this
poor girl says in her letter to you. Her sister has been obliged to go out
as a governess; and she herself, in losing her fortune, has lost the hope
of her marriage for years and years to come. You will remember this—and
you will give the hundred pounds to one, and the hundred pounds to the
other, which your admirable father offered in the past time? If he does
this, Miss Garth, will he do enough? If he gives a hundred pounds each to
these unfortunate sisters—?"</p>
<p>"He will repent the insult to the last hour of his life," said Magdalen.</p>
<p>The instant that answer passed her lips she would have given worlds to
recall it. Mrs. Lecount had planted her sting in the right place at last.
Those rash words of Magdalen's had burst from her passionately, in her own
voice.</p>
<p>Nothing but the habit of public performance saved her from making the
serious error that she had committed more palpable still, by attempting to
set it right. Here her past practice in the Entertainment came to her
rescue, and urged her to go on instantly in Miss Garth's voice as if
nothing had happened.</p>
<p>"You mean well, Mrs. Lecount," she continued, "but you are doing harm
instead of good. My pupils will accept no such compromise as you propose.
I am sorry to have spoken violently just now; I beg you will excuse me."
She looked hard for information in the housekeeper's face while she spoke
those conciliatory words. Mrs. Lecount baffled the look by putting her
handkerchief to her eyes. Had she, or had she not, noticed the momentary
change in Magdalen's voice from the tones that were assumed to the tones
that were natural? Impossible to say.</p>
<p>"What more can I do!" murmured Mrs. Lecount behind her handkerchief. "Give
me time to think—give me time to recover myself. May I retire, sir,
for a moment? My nerves are shaken by this sad scene. I must have a glass
of water, or I think I shall faint. Don't go yet, Miss Garth. I beg you
will give us time to set this sad matter right, if we can—I beg you
will remain until I come back."</p>
<p>There were two doors of entrance to the room. One, the door into the front
parlor, close at Magdalen's left hand. The other, the door into the back
parlor, situated behind her. Mrs. Lecount politely retired—through
the open folding-doors—by this latter means of exit, so as not to
disturb the visitor by passing in front of her. Magdalen waited until she
heard the door open and close again behind her, and then resolved to make
the most of the opportunity which left her alone with Noel Vanstone. The
utter hopelessness of rousing a generous impulse in that base nature had
now been proved by her own experience. The last chance left was to treat
him like the craven creature he was, and to influence him through his
fears.</p>
<p>Before she could speak, Noel Vanstone himself broke the silence. Cunningly
as he strove to hide it, he was half angry, half alarmed at his
housekeeper's desertion of him. He looked doubtingly at his visitor; he
showed a nervous anxiety to conciliate her until Mrs. Lecount's return.</p>
<p>"Pray remember, ma'am, I never denied that this case was a hard one," he
began. "You said just now you had no wish to offend me—and I'm sure
I don't want to offend you. May I offer you some strawberries? Would you
like to look at my father's bargains? I assure you, ma'am, I am naturally
a gallant man; and I feel for both these sisters—especially the
younger one. Touch me on the subject of the tender passion, and you touch
me on a weak place. Nothing would please me more than to hear that Miss
Vanstone's lover (I'm sure I always call her Miss Vanstone, and so does
Lecount)—I say, ma'am, nothing would please me more than to hear
that Miss Vanstone's lover had come back and married her. If a loan of
money would be likely to bring him back, and if the security offered was
good, and if my lawyer thought me justified—"</p>
<p>"Stop, Mr. Vanstone," said Magdalen. "You are entirely mistaken in your
estimate of the person you have to deal with. You are seriously wrong in
supposing that the marriage of the younger sister—if she could be
married in a week's time—would make any difference in the
convictions which induced her to write to your father and to you. I don't
deny that she may act from a mixture of motives. I don't deny that she
clings to the hope of hastening her marriage, and to the hope of rescuing
her sister from a life of dependence. But if both those objects were
accomplished by other means, nothing would induce her to leave you in
possession of the inheritance which her father meant his children to have.
I know her, Mr. Vanstone! She is a nameless, homeless, friendless wretch.
The law which takes care of you, the law which takes care of all
legitimate children, casts her like carrion to the winds. It is your law—not
hers. She only knows it as the instrument of a vile oppression, an
insufferable wrong. The sense of that wrong haunts her like a possession
of the devil. The resolution to right that wrong burns in her like fire.
If that miserable girl was married and rich, with millions tomorrow, do
you think she would move an inch from her purpose? I tell you she would
resist, to the last breath in her body, the vile injustice which has
struck at the helpless children, through the calamity of their father's
death! I tell you she would shrink from no means which a desperate woman
can employ to force that closed hand of yours open, or die in the
attempt!"</p>
<p>She stopped abruptly. Once more her own indomitable earnestness had
betrayed her. Once more the inborn nobility of that perverted nature had
risen superior to the deception which it had stooped to practice. The
scheme of the moment vanished from her mind's view; and the resolution of
her life burst its way outward in her own words, in her own tones, pouring
hotly and more hotly from her heart. She saw the abject manikin before her
cowering, silent, in his chair. Had his fears left him sense enough to
perceive the change in her voice? No: <i>his</i> face spoke the truth—his
fears had bewildered him. This time the chance of the moment had
befriended her. The door behind her chair had not opened again yet. "No
ears but his have heard me," she thought, with a sense of unutterable
relief. "I have escaped Mrs. Lecount."</p>
<p>She had done nothing of the kind. Mrs. Lecount had never left the room.</p>
<p>After opening the door and closing it again, without going out, the
housekeeper had noiselessly knelt down behind Magdalen's chair. Steadying
herself against the post of the folding-door, she took a pair of scissors
from her pocket, waited until Noel Vanstone (from whose view she was
entirely hidden) had attracted Magdalen's attention by speaking to her,
and then bent forward, with the scissors ready in her hand. The skirt of
the false Miss Garth's gown—the brown alpaca dress, with the white
spots on it—touched the floor, within the housekeeper's reach. Mrs.
Lecount lifted the outer of the two flounces which ran round the bottom of
the dress one over the other, softly cut away a little irregular fragment
of stuff from the inner flounce, and neatly smoothed the outer one over it
again, so as to hide the gap. By the time she had put the scissors back in
her pocket, and had risen to her feet (sheltering herself behind the post
of the folding-door), Magdalen had spoken her last words. Mrs. Lecount
quietly repeated the ceremony of opening and shutting the back parlor
door; and returned to her place.</p>
<p>"What has happened, sir, in my absence?" she inquired, addressing her
master with a look of alarm. "You are pale; you are agitated! Oh, Miss
Garth, have you forgotten the caution I gave you in the other room?"</p>
<p>"Miss Garth has forgotten everything," cried Noel Vanstone, recovering his
lost composure on the re-appearance of Mrs. Lecount. "Miss Garth has
threatened me in the most outrageous manner. I forbid you to pity either
of those two girls any more, Lecount—especially the younger one. She
is the most desperate wretch I ever heard of! If she can't get my money by
fair means, she threatens to have it by foul. Miss Garth has told me that
to my face. To my face!" he repeated, folding his arms, and looking
mortally insulted.</p>
<p>"Compose yourself, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "Pray compose yourself, and
leave me to speak to Miss Garth. I regret to hear, ma'am, that you have
forgotten what I said to you in the next room. You have agitated Mr. Noel;
you have compromised the interests you came here to plead; and you have
only repeated what we knew before. The language you have allowed yourself
to use in my absence is the same language which your pupil was foolish
enough to employ when she wrote for the second time to my late master. How
can a lady of your years and experience seriously repeat such nonsense?
This girl boasts and threatens. She will do this; she will do that. You
have her confidence, ma'am. Tell me, if you please, in plain words, what
can she do?"</p>
<p>Sharply as the taunt was pointed, it glanced off harmless. Mrs. Lecount
had planted her sting once too often. Magdalen rose in complete possession
of her assumed character and composedly terminated the interview. Ignorant
as she was of what had happened behind her chair, she saw a change in Mrs.
Lecount's look and manner which warned her to run no more risks, and to
trust herself no longer in the house.</p>
<p>"I am not in my pupil's confidence," she said. "Her own acts will answer
your question when the time comes. I can only tell you, from my own
knowledge of her, that she is no boaster. What she wrote to Mr. Michael
Vanstone was what she was prepared to do—-what, I have reason to
think, she was actually on the point of doing, when her plans were
overthrown by his death. Mr. Michael Vanstone's son has only to persist in
following his father's course to find, before long, that I am not mistaken
in my pupil, and that I have not come here to intimidate him by empty
threats. My errand is done. I leave Mr. Noel Vanstone with two
alternatives to choose from. I leave him to share Mr. Andrew Vanstone's
fortune with Mr. Andrew Vanstone's daughters—or to persist in his
present refusal and face the consequences." She bowed, and walked to the
door.</p>
<p>Noel Vanstone started to his feet, with anger and alarm struggling which
should express itself first in his blank white face. Before he could open
his lips, Mrs. Lecount's plump hands descended on his shoulders, put him
softly back in his chair, and restored the plate of strawberries to its
former position on his lap.</p>
<p>"Refresh yourself, Mr. Noel, with a few more strawberries," she said, "and
leave Miss Garth to me."</p>
<p>She followed Magdalen into the passage, and closed the door of the room
after her.</p>
<p>"Are you residing in London, ma'am?" asked Mrs. Lecount.</p>
<p>"No," replied Magdalen. "I reside in the country."</p>
<p>"If I want to write to you, where can I address my letter?"</p>
<p>"To the post-office, Birmingham," said Magdalen, mentioning the place
which she had last left, and at which all letters were still addressed to
her.</p>
<p>Mrs. Lecount repeated the direction to fix it in her memory, advanced two
steps in the passage, and quietly laid her right hand on Magdalen's arm.</p>
<p>"A word of advice, ma'am," she said; "one word at parting. You are a bold
woman and a clever woman. Don't be too bold; don't be too clever. You are
risking more than you think for." She suddenly raised herself on tiptoe
and whispered the next words in Magdalen's ear. "<i>I hold you in the
hollow of my hand!</i>" said Mrs. Lecount, with a fierce hissing emphasis
on every syllable. Her left hand clinched itself stealthily as she spoke.
It was the hand in which she had concealed the fragment of stuff from
Magdalen's gown—the hand which held it fast at that moment.</p>
<p>"What do you mean?" asked Magdalen, pushing her back.</p>
<p>Mrs. Lecount glided away politely to open the house door.</p>
<p>"I mean nothing now," she said; "wait a little, and time may show. One
last question, ma'am, before I bid you good-by. When your pupil was a
little innocent child, did she ever amuse herself by building a house of
cards?"</p>
<p>Magdalen impatiently answered by a gesture in the affirmative.</p>
<p>"Did you ever see her build up the house higher and higher," proceeded
Mrs. Lecount, "till it was quite a pagoda of cards? Did you ever see her
open her little child's eyes wide and look at it, and feel so proud of
what she had done already that she wanted to do more? Did you ever see her
steady her pretty little hand, and hold her innocent breath, and put one
other card on the top, and lay the whole house, the instant afterward, a
heap of ruins on the table? Ah, you have seen that. Give her, if you
please, a friendly message from me. I venture to say she has built the
house high enough already; and I recommend her to be careful before she
puts on that other card."</p>
<p>"She shall have your message," said Magdalen, with Miss Garth's bluntness,
and Miss Garth's emphatic nod of the head. "But I doubt her minding it.
Her hand is rather steadier than you suppose, and I think she will put on
the other card."</p>
<p>"And bring the house down," said Mrs. Lecount.</p>
<p>"And build it up again," rejoined Magdalen. "I wish you good-morning."</p>
<p>"Good-morning," said Mrs. Lecount, opening the door. "One last word, Miss
Garth. Do think of what I said in the back room! Do try the Golden
Ointment for that sad affliction in your eyes!"</p>
<p>As Magdalen crossed the threshold of the door she was met by the postman
ascending the house steps with a letter picked out from the bundle in his
hand. "Noel Vanstone, Esquire?" she heard the man say, interrogatively, as
she made her way down the front garden to the street.</p>
<p>She passed through the garden gates little thinking from what new
difficulty and new danger her timely departure had saved her. The letter
which the postman had just delivered into the housekeeper's hands was no
other than the anonymous letter addressed to Noel Vanstone by Captain
Wragge.</p>
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