“Neck or nothing, by all means,” said Noel Vanstone, briskly—­“on the understanding that you go first.  I have no scruples about keeping Lecount in the dark.  But she is devilish cunning, Mr. Bygrave.  How is it to be done?”

“You shall hear directly,” replied the captain.  “Before I develop my views, I should like to have your opinion on an abstract question of morality.  What do you think, my dear sir, of pious frauds in general?”

Noel Vanstone looked a little embarrassed by the question.

“Shall I put it more plainly?” continued Captain Wragge.  “What do you say to the universally-accepted maxim that ’all stratagems are fair in love and war’?—­Yes or No?”

“Yes!” answered Noel Vanstone, with the utmost readiness.

“One more question and I have done,” said the captain.  “Do you see any particular objection to practicing a pious fraud on Mrs. Lecount?”

Noel Vanstone’s resolution began to falter a little.

“Is Lecount likely to find it out?” he asked cautiously.

“She can’t possibly discover it until you are married and out of her reach.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“Play any trick you like on Lecount,” said Noel Vanstone, with an air of unutterable relief.  “I have had my suspicions lately that she is trying to domineer over me; I am beginning to feel that I have borne with Lecount long enough.  I wish I was well rid of her.”

“You shall have your wish,” said Captain Wragge.  “You shall be rid of her in a week or ten days.”

Noel Vanstone rose eagerly and approached the captain’s chair.

“You don’t say so!” he exclaimed.  “How do you mean to send her away?”

“I mean to send her on a journey,” replied Captain Wragge.

“Where?”

“From your house at Aldborough to her brother’s bedside at Zurich.”

Noel Vanstone started back at the answer, and returned suddenly to his chair.

“How can you do that?” he inquired, in the greatest perplexity.  “Her brother (hang him!) is much better.  She had another letter from Zurich to say so, this morning.”

“Did you see the letter?”

“Yes.  She always worries about her brother—­she would show it to me.”

“Who was it from? and what did it say?”

“It was from the doctor—­he always writes to her.  I don’t care two straws about her brother, and I don’t remember much of the letter, except that it was a short one.  The fellow was much better; and if the doctor didn’t write again, she might take it for granted that he was getting well.  That was the substance of it.”

“Did you notice where she put the letter when you gave it her back again?”

“Yes.  She put it in the drawer where she keeps her account-books.”

“Can you get at that drawer?”

“Of course I can.  I have got a duplicate key—­I always insist on a duplicate key of the place where she keeps her account books.  I never allow the account-books to be locked up from my inspection:  it’s a rule of the house.”