He vehemently nodded his approval; his color rose, and his blinking eyes brightened in malicious triumph.  “She shan’t have a farthing,” he said to himself, in a whisper—­“she shan’t have a farthing!”

“When your will is made, sir,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount, “you must place it in the hands of a trustworthy person—­not my hands, Mr. Noel; I am only your servant!  Then, when the will is safe, and when you are safe, write to your wife at this house.  Tell her her infamous imposture is discovered; tell her you have made a new will, which leaves her penniless at your death; tell her, in your righteous indignation, that she enters your doors no more.  Place yourself in that strong position, and it is no longer you who are at your wife’s mercy, but your wife who is at yours.  Assert your own power, sir, with the law to help you, and crush this woman into submission to any terms for the future that you please to impose.”

He eagerly took up the pen.  “Yes,” he said, with a vindictive self-importance, “any terms I please to impose.”  He suddenly checked himself and his face became dejected and perplexed.  “How can I do it now?” he asked, throwing down the pen as quickly as he had taken it up.

“Do what, sir?” inquired Mrs. Lecount.

“How can I make my will, with Mr. Loscombe away in London, and no lawyer here to help me?”

Mrs. Lecount gently tapped the papers before her on the table with her forefinger.

“All the help you need, sir, is waiting for you here,” she said.  “I considered this matter carefully before I came to you; and I provided myself with the confidential assistance of a friend to guide me through those difficulties which I could not penetrate for myself.  The friend to whom I refer is a gentleman of Swiss extraction, but born and bred in England.  He is not a lawyer by profession—­but he has had his own sufficient experience of the law, nevertheless; and he has supplied me, not only with a model by which you may make your will, but with the written sketch of a letter which it is as important for us to have, as the model of the will itself.  There is another necessity waiting for you, Mr. Noel, which I have not mentioned yet, but which is no less urgent in its way than the necessity of the will.”

“What is it?” he asked, with roused curiosity.

“We will take it in its turn, sir,” answered Mrs. Lecount.  “Its turn has not come yet.  The will, if you please, first.  I will dictate from the model in my possession and you will write.”

Noel Vanstone looked at the draft for the Will and the draft for the Letter with suspicious curiosity.

“I think I ought to see the papers myself, before you dictate,” he said.  “It would be more satisfactory to my own mind, Lecount.”

“By all means, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, handing him the papers immediately.

He read the draft for the Will first, pausing and knitting his brows distrustfully, wherever he found blank spaces left in the manuscript to be filled in with the names of persons and the enumeration of sums bequeathed to them.  Two or three minutes of reading brought him to the end of the paper.  He gave it back to Mrs. Lecount without making any objection to it.