At a quarter before eleven Mrs. Wragge (with her own entire concurrence) was dismissed to the back room, to bewilder herself over the science of dressmaking for the rest of the day.  Punctually as the clock struck the hour, Mrs. Lecount and her master drove up to the gate of North Shingles, and found Magdalen and Captain Wragge waiting for them in the garden.

On the way to Dunwich nothing occurred to disturb the enjoyment of the drive.  Noel Vanstone was in excellent health and high good-humor.  Lecount had apologized for the little misunderstanding of the previous night; Lecount had petitioned for the excursion as a treat to herself.  He thought of these concessions, and looked at Magdalen, and smirked and simpered without intermission.  Mrs. Lecount acted her part to perfection.  She was motherly with Magdalen and tenderly attentive to Noel Vanstone.  She was deeply interested in Captain Wragge’s conversation, and meekly disappointed to find it turn on general subjects, to the exclusion of science.  Not a word or look escaped her which hinted in the remotest degree at her real purpose.  She was dressed with her customary elegance and propriety; and she was the only one of the party on that sultry summer’s day who was perfectly cool in the hottest part of the journey.

As they left the carriage on their arrival at Dunwich, the captain seized a moment when Mrs. Lecount’s eye was off him and fortified Magdalen by a last warning word.

“’Ware the cat!” he whispered.  “She will show her claws on the way back.”

They left the village and walked to the ruins of a convent near at hand—­the last relic of the once populous city of Dunwich which has survived the destruction of the place, centuries since, by the all-devouring sea.  After looking at the ruins, they sought the shade of a little wood between the village and the low sand-hills which overlook the German Ocean.  Here Captain Wragge maneuvered so as to let Magdalen and Noel Vanstone advance some distance in front of Mrs. Lecount and himself, took the wrong path, and immediately lost his way with the most consummate dexterity.  After a few minutes’ wandering (in the wrong direction), he reached an open space near the sea; and politely opening his camp-stool for the housekeeper’s accommodation, proposed waiting where they were until the missing members of the party came that way and discovered them.

Mrs. Lecount accepted the proposal.  She was perfectly well aware that her escort had lost himself on purpose, but that discovery exercised no disturbing influence on the smooth amiability of her manner.  Her day of reckoning with the captain had not come yet—­she merely added the new item to her list, and availed herself of the camp-stool.  Captain Wragge stretched himself in a romantic attitude at her feet, and the two determined enemies (grouped like two lovers in a picture) fell into as easy and pleasant a conversation as if they had been friends of twenty years’ standing.