Thus far the captain’s instructions had been too clear and simple to be mistaken by any one.  But they advanced in complication with the advance of time, and on the third day Noel Vanstone fell confusedly into the commission of a slight error.  After expressing the necessary weariness of Aldborough, and the consequent anxiety for change of scene, he was met (as he had anticipated) by an immediate suggestion from the housekeeper, recommending a visit to St. Crux.  In giving his answer to the advice thus tendered, he made his first mistake.  Instead of deferring his decision until the next day, he accepted Mrs. Lecount’s suggestion on the day when it was offered to him.

The consequences of this error were of no great importance.  The housekeeper merely set herself to watch her master one day earlier than had been calculated on—­a result which had been already provided for by the wise precautionary measure of forbidding Noel Vanstone all communication with North Shingles.  Doubting, as Captain Wragge had foreseen, the sincerity of her master’s desire to break off his connection with the Bygraves by going to St. Crux, Mrs. Lecount tested the truth or falsehood of the impression produced on her own mind by vigilantly watching for sign s of secret communication on one side or on the other.  The close attention with which she had hitherto observed the out-goings and in-comings at North Shingles was now entirely transferred to her master.  For the rest of that third day she never let him out of her sight; she never allowed any third person who came to the house, on any pretense whatever, a minute’s chance of private communication with him.  At intervals through the night she stole to the door of his room, to listen and assure herself that he was in bed; and before sunrise the next morning, the coast-guardsman going his rounds was surprised to see a lady who had risen as early as himself engaged over her work at one of the upper windows of Sea View.

On the fourth morning Noel Vanstone came down to breakfast conscious of the mistake that he had committed on the previous day.  The obvious course to take, for the purpose of gaining time, was to declare that his mind was still undecided.  He made the assertion boldly when the housekeeper asked him if he meant to move that day.  Again Mrs. Lecount offered no remark, and again the signs and tokens of incredulity showed themselves in her face.  Vacillation of purpose was not at all unusual in her experience of her master.  But on this occasion she believed that his caprice of conduct was assumed for the purpose of gaining time to communicate with North Shingles, and she accordingly set her watch on him once more with doubled and trebled vigilance.