“Is there nobody else who could tell Mrs. Lecount? The mark was mentioned in the handbills at York. Who put it there?”
“Not Norah! Perhaps Mr. Pendril. Perhaps Miss Garth.”
“Then Mrs. Lecount has written to Mr. Pendril or Miss Garth—more likely to Miss Garth. The governess would be easier to deal with than the lawyer.”
“What can she have said to Miss Garth?”
Captain Wragge considered a little.
“I can’t say what Mrs. Lecount may have written,” he said, “but I can tell you what I should have written in Mrs. Lecount’s place. I should have frightened Miss Garth by false reports about you, to begin with, and then I should have asked for personal particulars, to help a benevolent stranger in restoring you to your friends.” The angry glitter flashed up instantly in Magdalen’s eyes.
“What you would have done is what Mrs. Lecount has done,” she said, indignantly. “Neither lawyer nor governess shall dispute my right to my own will and my own way. If Miss Garth thinks she can control my actions by corresponding with Mrs. Lecount, I will show Miss Garth she is mistaken! It is high time, Captain Wragge, to have done with these wretched risks of discovery. We will take the short way to the end we have in view sooner than Mrs. Lecount or Miss Garth think for. How long can you give me to wring an offer of marriage out of that creature downstairs?”
“I dare not give you long,” replied Captain Wragge. “Now your friends know where you are, they may come down on us at a day’s notice. Could you manage it in a week?”
“I’ll manage it in half the time,” she said, with a hard, defiant laugh. “Leave us together this morning as you left us at Dunwich, and take Mrs. Wragge with you, as an excuse for parting company. Is the paint dry yet? Go downstairs and tell him I am coming directly.”
So, for the second time, Miss Garth’s well-meant efforts defeated their own end. So the fatal force of circumstance turned the hand that would fain have held Magdalen back into the hand that drove her on.