Bold as he was, his nerves were a little shaken by this last achievement; his hand trembled as it lifted the latch of the garden gate.  He doctored his nerves with brandy and water before he sent for Magdalen to inform her of the proceedings of the morning.  Another outbreak might reasonably be expected when she heard that the last irrevocable step had been taken, and that notice had been given of the wedding-day.

The captain’s watch warned him to lose no time in emptying his glass.  In a few minutes he sent the necessary message upstairs.  While waiting for Magdalen’s appearance, he provided himself with certain materials which were now necessary to carry the enterprise to its crowning point.  In the first place, he wrote his assumed name (by no means in so fine a hand as usual) on a blank visiting-card, and added underneath these words:  “Not a moment is to be lost.  I am waiting for you at the door—­come down to me directly.”  His next proceeding was to take some half-dozen envelopes out of the case, and to direct them all alike to the following address:  “Thomas Bygrave, Esq., Mussared’s Hotel, Salisbury Street, Strand, London.”  After carefully placing the envelopes and the card in his breast-pocket, he shut up the desk.  As he rose from the writing-table, Magdalen came into the room.

The captain took a moment to decide on the best method of opening the interview, and determined, in his own phrase, to dash at it.  In two words he told Magdalen what had happened, and informed her that Monday was to be her wedding-day.

He was prepared to quiet her, if she burst into a frenzy of passion; to reason with her, if she begged for time; to sympathize with her, if she melted into tears.  To his inexpressible surprise, results falsified all his calculations.  She heard him without uttering a word, without shedding a tear.  When he had done, she dropped into a chair.  Her large gray eyes stared at him vacantly.  In one mysterious instant all her beauty left her; her face stiffened awfully, like the face of a corpse.  For the first time in the captain’s experience of her, fear—­all-mastering fear—­had taken possession of her, body and soul.

“You are not flinching,” he said, trying to rouse her.  “Surely you are not flinching at the last moment?”

No light of intelligence came into her eyes, no change passed over her face.  But she heard him—­for she moved a little in the chair, and slowly shook her head.

“You planned this marriage of your own freewill,” pursued the captain, with the furtive look and the faltering voice of a man ill at ease.  “It was your own idea—­not mine.  I won’t have the responsibility laid on my shoulders—­no! not for twice two hundred pounds.  If your resolution fails you; if you think better of it—?”

He stopped.  Her face was changing; her lips were moving at last.  She slowly raised her left hand, with the fingers outspread; she looked at it as if it was a hand that was strange to her; she counted the days on it, the days before the marriage.