Noel Vanstone faintly attempted to ask a question.  The captain declined to hear it.

“As much talk as you like on the road,” he said.  “Time is too precious for talking here.  How do we know Lecount may not think better of it?  How do we know she may not turn back before she gets to Zurich?”

That startling consideration terrified Noel Vanstone into instant submission.

“What shall I say to the admiral?” he asked, helplessly.

“Tell him you are going to be married, to be sure!  What does it matter, now Lecount’s back is turned?  If he wonders you didn’t tell him before, say it’s a runaway match, and the bride is waiting for you.  Stop!  Any letters addressed to you in your absence will be sent to this place, of course?  Give the admiral these envelopes, and tell him to forward your letters under cover to me.  I am an old customer at the hotel we are going to; and if we find the place full, the landlord may be depended on to take care of any letters with my name on them.  A safe address in London for your correspondence may be of the greatest importance.  How do we know Lecount may not write to you on her way to Zurich?”

“What a head you have got!” cried Noel Vanstone, eagerly taking the envelopes.  “You think of everything.”

He left the carriage in high excitement, and ran back into the house.  In ten minutes more Captain Wragge had him in safe custody, and the horses started on their return journey.

The travelers reached London in good time that evening, and found accommodation at the hotel.

Knowing the restless, inquisitive nature of the man he had to deal with, Captain Wragge had anticipated some little difficulty and embarrassment in meeting the questions which Noel Vanstone might put to him on the way to London.  To his great relief, a startling domestic discovery absorbed his traveling companion’s whole attention at the outset of the journey.  By some extraordinary oversight, Miss Bygrave had been left, on the eve of her marriage, unprovided with a maid.  Noel Vanstone declared that he would take the whole responsibility of correcting this deficiency in the arrangements, on his own shoulders; he would not trouble Mr. Bygrave to give him any assistance; he would confer, when they got to their journey’s end, with the landlady of the hotel, and would examine the candidates for the vacant office himself.  All the way to London, he returned again and again to the same subject; all the evening, at the hotel, he was in and out of the landlady’s sitting-room, until he fairly obliged her to lock the door.  In every other proceeding which related to his marriage, he had been kept in the background; he had been compelled to follow in the footsteps of his ingenious friend.  In the matter of the lady’s maid he claimed his fitting position at last—­he followed nobody; he took the lead!