“Norah,” said Magdalen, turning to her sister, “if we both live to grow old, and if ever you forget all we owe to Michael Vanstone—­come to me, and I will remind you.”

II.—­Tricked into Marriage

By fair means or foul, Magdalen, who, with Norah, had now made her home with Miss Garth in London, had sworn to herself that she would win back the property of which she had been robbed by Michael Vanstone.  Selling all her jewellery and dresses, she managed to secure two hundred pounds, and with this sum in her pocket she secretly left home.  The theatrical manager, who had offered her an engagement should she ever require it, had moved to York, and it was to that city that Magdalen hastened.

Her absence was at once discovered, and Miss Garth resorted to every possible means of tracing her to her destination.  A reward of fifty pounds was offered, and her mode of procedure being suspected, handbills setting forth her appearance were posted in York.  It was one of these bills that attracted the attention of a certain Captain Wragge.

Captain Wragge was the stepson of Mrs. Vanstone’s mother, and had persisted in regarding himself as a member of her family, and, having known of the real relationship that existed between his half-sister and Mr. Andrew Vanstone, had obtained from the latter a small annual subsidy as the price of his silence.  A confessed rogue, the captain imagined he saw in this handbill an opportunity of re-stocking his exhausted exchequer.

As he wandered on the walls of York, pondering how he should act, he met Magdalen herself, and at once greeted her as a relative.  The girl would have avoided him, but on his pointing out that unless she placed herself under his protection she was bound to be discovered and taken back to her friends, she consented to accompany him to his lodgings.  There he introduced her to his wife, a tall, gaunt woman with a large, good-natured, vacant face, who lived in a state of bemused terror of her husband, who bullied and dragooned her according to his mood.

After listening to the frank exposition of his character and his method of living, Magdalen decided to accept Captain Wragge’s assistance.  On certain terms, Wragge agreed to train her for the stage and secure her engagements, taking a half share of any money she might earn.  In return for these profits, he agreed to carry out certain inquiries whenever she might think it necessary.  As to the nature of these inquiries, she, for the time being, preserved silence.

Magdalen’s talent for acting proved highly successful, and under the direction of the captain she began rapidly to make a reputation for herself, and at the end of six months she had saved between six and seven hundred pounds.  She now decided that it was time to put her plan of retribution into execution.