“Just so,” he said, in his most business-like manner.  “There is not the least fear, my dear girl, of your being kept back in a theater, if you possess present resources, and if you profit by my assistance.”

“I must accept more assistance than you have already offered—­or none,” said Magdalen.  “I have more serious difficulties before me than the difficulty of leaving York, and the difficulty of finding my way to the stage.”

“You don’t say so!  I am all attention; pray explain yourself!”

She considered her next words carefully before they passed her lips.

“There are certain inquiries,” she said, “which I am interested in making.  If I undertook them myself, I should excite the suspicion of the person inquired after, and should learn little or nothing of what I wish to know.  If the inquiries could be made by a stranger, without my being seen in the matter, a service would be rendered me of much greater importance than the service you offered last night.”

Captain Wragge’s vagabond face became gravely and deeply attentive.

“May I ask,” he said, “what the nature of the inquiries is likely to be?”

Magdalen hesitated.  She had necessarily mentioned Michael Vanstone’s name in informing the captain of the loss of her inheritance.  She must inevitably mention it to him again if she employed his services.  He would doubtless discover it for himself, by a plain process of inference, before she said many words more, frame them as carefully as she might.  Under these circumstances, was there any intelligible reason for shrinking from direct reference to Michael Vanstone?  No intelligible reason—­and yet she shrank.

“For instance,” pursued Captain Wragge, “are they inquiries about a man or a woman; inquiries about an enemy or a friend—?”

“An enemy,” she answered, quickly.

Her reply might still have kept the captain in the dark—­but her eyes enlightened him.  “Michael Vanstone!” thought the wary Wragge.  “She looks dangerous; I’ll feel my way a little further.”

“With regard, now, to the person who is the object of these inquiries,” he resumed.  “Are you thoroughly clear in your own mind about what you want to know?”

“Perfectly clear,” replied Magdalen.  “I want to know where he lives, to begin with.”

“Yes.  And after that?”

“I want to know about his habits; about who the people are whom he associates with; about what he does with his money—­” She considered a little.  “And one thing more,” she said; “I want to know whether there is any woman about his house—­a relation, or a housekeeper—­who has an influence over him.”

“Harmless enough, so far,” said the captain.  “What next?”

“Nothing.  The rest is my secret.”

The clouds on Captain Wragge’s countenance began to clear away again.  He reverted, with his customary precision, to his customary choice of alternatives.  “These inquiries of hers,” he thought, “mean one of two things—­Mischief, or Money!  If it’s Mischief, I’ll slip through her fingers.  If it’s Money, I’ll make myself useful, with a view to the future.”