a few days, finding my niece not so well again, and wishing to take her on a short visit to some friends to try change of air.  If you could produce an impression on Mrs. Lecount’s mind (without overdoing it), that you are a little disappointed in me, and that you are rather inclined to doubt my heartiness in cultivating your acquaintance, you will greatly help our present object.  You may depend on our return to North Shingles in four or five days at furthest.  If anything strikes me in the meanwhile, the post is always at our service, and I won’t fail to write to you.”

“Won’t Miss Bygrave write to me?” inquired Noel Vanstone, piteously.  “Did she know you were coming here?  Did she send me no message?”

“Unpardonable on my part to have forgotten it!” cried the captain.  “She sent you her love.”

Noel Vanstone closed his eyes in silent ecstasy.

When he opened them again Captain Wragge had passed through the garden gate and was on his way back to North Shingles.  As soon as his own door had closed on him, Mrs. Lecount descended from the post of observation which the captain had rightly suspected her of occupying, and addressed the inquiry to her master which the captain had rightly foreseen would follow his departure.  The reply she received produced but one impression on her mind.  She at once set it down as a falsehood, and returned to her own window to keep watch over North Shingles more vigilantly than ever.

To her utter astonishment, after a lapse of less than half an hour she saw an empty carriage draw up at Mr. Bygrave’s door.  Luggage was brought out and packed on the vehicle.  Miss Bygrave appeared, and took her seat in it.  She was followed into the carriage by a lady of great size and stature, whom the housekeeper conjectured to be Mrs. Bygrave.  The servant came next, and stood waiting on the path.  The last person to appear was Mr. Bygrave.  He locked the house door, and took the key away with him to a cottage near at hand, which was the residence of the landlord of North Shingles.  On his return, he nodded to the servant, who walked away by herself toward the humbler quarter of the little town, and joined the ladies in the carriage.  The coachman mounted the box, and the vehicle disappeared.

Mrs. Lecount laid down the opera-glass, through which she had been closely investigating these proceedings, with a feeling of helpless perplexity which she was almost ashamed to acknowledge to herself.  The secret of Mr. Bygrave’s object in suddenly emptying his house at Aldborough of every living creature in it was an impenetrable mystery to her.

Submitting herself to circumstances with a ready resignation which Captain Wragge had not shown, on his side, in a similar situation, Mrs. Lecount wasted neither time nor temper in unprofitable guess-work.  She left the mystery to thicken or to clear, as the future might decide, and looked exclusively at the uses to which she might put the morning’s event in her own interests.  Whatever might have become of the family at North Shingles, the servant was left behind, and the servant was exactly the person whose assistance might now be of vital importance to the housekeeper’s projects.  Mrs. Lecount put on her bonnet, inspected the collection of loose silver in her purse, and set forth on the spot to make the servant’s acquaintance.