She passed through the garden gates little thinking from what new difficulty and new danger her timely departure had saved her. The letter which the postman had just delivered into the housekeeper’s hands was no other than the anonymous letter addressed to Noel Vanstone by Captain Wragge.
CHAPTER IV.
Mrs. Lecount returned to the parlor, with the fragment of Magdalen’s dress in one hand, and with Captain Wragge’s letter in the other.
“Have you got rid of her?” asked Noel Vanstone. “Have you shut the door at last on Miss Garth?”
“Don’t call her Miss Garth, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, smiling contemptuously. “She is as much Miss Garth as you are. We have been favored by the performance of a clever masquerade; and if we had taken the disguise off our visitor, I think we should have found under it Miss Vanstone herself.—Here is a letter for you, sir, which the postman has just left.”
She put the letter on the table within her master’s reach. Noel Vanstone’s amazement at the discovery just communicated to him kept his whole attention concentrated on the housekeeper’s face. He never so much as looked at the letter when she placed it before him.
“Take my word for it, sir,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount, composedly taking a chair. “When our visitor gets home she will put her gray hair away in a box, and will cure that sad affliction in her eyes with warm water and a sponge. If she had painted the marks on her face, as well as she painted the inflammation in her eyes, the light would have shown me nothing, and I should certainly have been deceived. But I saw the marks; I saw a young woman’s skin under that dirty complexion of hers; I heard in this room a true voice in a passion, as well as a false voice talking with an accent, and I don’t believe in one morsel of that lady’s personal appearance from top to toe. The girl herself, in my opinion, Mr. Noel—and a bold girl too.”
“Why didn’t you lock the door and send for the police?” asked Mr. Noel. “My father would have sent for the police. You know, as well as I do, Lecount, my father would have sent for the police.”
“Pardon me, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, “I think your father would have waited until he had got something more for the police to do than we have got for them yet. We shall see this lady again, sir. Perhaps she will come here next time with her own face and her own voice. I am curious to see what her own face is like. I am curious to know whether what I have heard of her voice in a passion is enough to make me recognize her voice when she is calm. I possess a little memorial of her visit of which she is not aware, and she will not escape me so easily as she thinks. If it turns out a useful memorial, you shall know what it is. If not, I will abstain from troubling you on so trifling a subject.—Allow me to remind you, sir, of the letter under your hand. You have not looked at it yet.”
Noel Vanstone opened the letter. He started as his eye fell on the first lines—hesitated—and then hurriedly read it through. The paper dropped from his hand, and he sank back in his chair. Mrs. Lecount sprang to her feet with the alacrity of a young woman and picked up the letter.