“Accept my excuses, ma’am, for the place in which I am compelled to receive you,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount in fluent English, spoken with a foreign accent.  “Mr. Vanstone is only here for a temporary purpose.  We leave for the sea-side to-morrow afternoon, and it has not been thought worth while to set the house in proper order.  Will you take a seat, and oblige me by mentioning the object of your visit?”

She glided imperceptibly a step or two nearer to Magdalen, and placed a chair for her exactly opposite the light from the window.  “Pray sit down,” said Mrs. Lecount, looking with the tenderest interest at the visitor’s inflamed eyes through the visitor’s net veil.

“I am suffering, as you see, from a complaint in the eyes,” replied Magdalen, steadily keeping her profile toward the window, and carefully pitching her voice to the tone of Miss Garth’s.  “I must beg your permission to wear my veil down, and to sit away from the light.”  She said those words, feeling mistress of herself again.  With perfect composure she drew the chair back into the corner of the room beyond the window and seated herself, keeping the shadow of her bonnet well over her face.  Mrs. Lecount’s persuasive lips murmured a polite expression of sympathy; Mrs. Lecount’s amiable black eyes looked more interested in the strange lady than ever.  She placed a chair for herself exactly on a line with Magdalen’s, and sat so close to the wall as to force her visitor either to turn her head a little further round toward the window, or to fail in politeness by not looking at the person whom she addressed.  “Yes,” said Mrs. Lecount, with a confidential little c ough.  “And to what circumstances am I indebted for the honor of this visit?”

“May I inquire, first, if my name happens to be familiar to you?” said Magdalen, turning toward her as a matter of necessity, but coolly holding up her handkerchief at the same time between her face and the light.

“No,” answered Mrs. Lecount, with another little cough, rather harsher than the first.  “The name of Miss Garth is not familiar to me.”

“In that case,” pursued Magdalen, “I shall best explain the object that causes me to intrude on you by mentioning who I am.  I lived for many years as governess in the family of the late Mr. Andrew Vanstone, of Combe-Raven, and I come here in the interest of his orphan daughters.”

Mrs. Lecount’s hands, which had been smoothly sliding one over the other up to this time, suddenly stopped; and Mrs. Lecount’s lips, self-forgetfully shutting up, owned they were too thin at the very outset of the interview.

“I am surprised you can bear the light out-of-doors without a green shade,” she quietly remarked; leaving the false Miss Garth’s announcement of herself as completely unnoticed as it she had not spoken at all.

“I find a shade over my eyes keeps them too hot at this time of the year,” rejoined Magdalen, steadily matching the housekeeper’s composure.  “May I ask whether you heard what I said just now on the subject of my errand in this house?”