“I think it has one defect,” said Magdalen.  “It ends in nothing.”

“Pardon me,” retorted the captain.  “It ends in an arrangement for your safe departure, and in a plan for the entire gratification of your wishes in the direction of the stage.  Both drawn from the resources of my own experience, and both waiting a word from you, to be poured forth immediately in the fullest detail.”

“I think I know what that word is,” replied Magdalen, looking at him attentively.

“Charmed to hear it, I am sure.  You have only to say, ’Captain Wragge, take charge of me’—­and my plans are yours from that moment.”

“I will take to-night to consider your proposal,” she said, after an instant’s reflection.  “You shall have my answer to-morrow morning.”

Captain Wragge looked a little disappointed.  He had not expected the reservation on his side to be met so composedly by a reservation on hers.

“Why not decide at once?” he remonstrated, in his most persuasive tones.  “You have only to consider—­”

“I have more to consider than you think for,” she answered.  “I have another object in view besides the object you know of.”

“May I ask—?”

“Excuse me, Captain Wragge—­you may not ask.  Allow me to thank you for your hospitality, and to wish you good-night.  I am worn out.  I want rest.”

Once more the captain wisely adapted himself to her humor with the ready self-control of an experienced man.

“Worn out, of course!” he said, sympathetically.  “Unpardonable on my part not to have thought of it before.  We will resume our conversation to-morrow.  Permit me to give you a candle.  Mrs. Wragge!”

Prostrated by mental exertion, Mrs. Wragge was pursuing the course of the omelette in dreams.  Her head was twisted one way, and her body the other.  She snored meekly.  At intervals one of her hands raised itself in the air, shook an imaginary frying-pan, and dropped again with a faint thump on the cookery-book in her lap.  At the sound of her husband’s voice, she started to her feet, and confronted him with her mind fast asleep, and her eyes wide open.

“Assist Miss Vanstone,” said the captain.  “And the next time you forget yourself in your chair, fall asleep straight—­don’t annoy me by falling asleep crooked.”

Mrs. Wragge opened her eyes a little wider, and looked at Magdalen in helpless amazement.

“Is the captain breakfasting by candle-light?” she inquired, meekly.  “And haven’t I done the omelette?”

Before her husband’s corrective voice could apply a fresh stimulant, Magdalen took her compassionately by the arm and led her out of the room.

“Another object besides the object I know of?” repeated Captain Wragge, when he was left by himself. “Is there a gentleman in the background, after all?  Is there mischief brewing in the dark that I don’t bargain for?”

CHAPTER III.