Mrs. Lecount softly shut the door again, and
came back a step.

"Free of legacy duty, sir?" she inquired.

"No!"

Mrs. Lecount turned on her heel, and opened
the door again.

"Yes!"

Mrs. Lecount came back, and resumed her
place at the table, as if nothing had happened.

"Five thousand pounds, free of legacy duty,
was the sum, sir, which your father's grateful
regard promised me in his will," she said, quietly.
"If you choose to exert your memory, as you
have not chosen to exert it yet, your memory will
tell you that I speak the truth. I accept your
filial performance of your father's promise, Mr.
Noel—- and there I stop. I scorn to take a mean
advantage of my position towards you; I scorn
to grasp anything from your fears. You are
protected by my respect for myself, and for the
Illustrious Name I bear. You are welcome to
all that I have done, and to all that I have
suffered in your service. The widow of Professor
Lecompte, sir, takes what is justly hers—- and
takes no more!"

As she spoke those words, the traces of
sickness seemed, for the moment, to disappear from
her face; her eyes shone with a steady inner
light; all the woman warmed and brightened in
the radiance of her own triumph—- the triumph,
trebly won, of carrying her point, of
vindicating her integrity, and of matching Magdalen's
incorruptible self- denial on Magdalen's own
ground.

"When you are yourself again, sir, we will
proceed. Let us wait a little first."

She gave him time to compose himself; and
then, after first looking at her Draft, dictated
the second paragraph of the will, in these terms:

"I give and bequeath to Madame Virginie
Lecompte (widow of Professor Lecompte, late of
Zurich) the sum of Five Thousand Pounds, free
of Legacy Duty. And, in making this bequest,
I wish to place it on record that I am not only
expressing my own sense of Madame Lecompte' s
attachment and fidelity in the capacity of my
housekeeper, but that I also believe myself to be
executing the intentions of my deceased father,
who, but for the circumstance of his dying
intestate, would have left Madame Lecompte, in his
will, the same token of grateful regard for her
services, which I now leave her in mine."

"Have you written the last words, sir?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Lecount leaned across the table, and
offered Noel Vanstone her hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Noel," she said. " The five
thousand pounds is the acknowledgment on your
father's side of what I have done for him. The
words in the will are the acknowledgment on
yours."

A faint smile flickered over his face for the
first time. It comforted him, on reflection, to
think that matters might have been worse. There
was balm for his wounded spirit, in paying the
debt of gratitude by a sentence not negotiable
at his banker's. Whatever his father might have
done-— he had got Lecount a bargain, after all!

"A little more writing, sir," resumed Mrs.
Lecount, " and your painful, but necessary, duty
will be performed. The trifling matter of my
legacy being settled, we may come to the
important question that is left. The future direction
of a large fortune is now waiting your word of
command. To whom is it to go?"

He began to writhe again in his chair. Even
under the all-powerful fascination of his wife, the
parting with his money on paper had not been
accomplished without a pang. He had endured
the pang; he had resigned himself to the
sacrifice. And, now, here was the dreaded ordeal
again, awaiting him mercilessly for the second
time!

"Perhaps it may assist your decision, sir, if I
repeat a question which I have put to you
already," observed Mrs. Lecount. In the will
that you made under your wife's influence, to
whom did you leave the surplus money which
remained at your own disposal?"

There was no harm in answering the question,
now. He acknowledged that he had left the
money to his cousin George.

"You could have done nothing better, Mr.
Noel—and you can do nothing better now," said
Mrs. Lecount. " Mr. George and his two sisters
are your only relations left. One of those sisters
is an incurable invalid, with more than money
enough already for all the wants which her
affliction, allows her to feel. The other is the wife of
a man, even richer than yourself. To leave the
money to these sisters is to waste it. To leave
the money to their brother George, is to give your
cousin exactly the assistance which he will want,
when he one day inherits his uncle's dilapidated
house, and his uncle's impoverished estate. A
will which names the admiral your executor, and
Mr. George your heir, is the right will for you to
make. It does honour to the claims of
friendship, and it does justice to the claims of blood."

She spoke warmly-—  for she spoke with a
grateful remembrance of all that she herself
owed to the hospitality of St. Crux. Noel
Vanstone took up another pen, and began to strip
the second quill of its feathers, as he had
stripped the first.

"Yes," he said, reluctantly; "I suppose
George must have it—- I suppose George has the
principal claim on me." He hesitated: he looked
at the door, he looked at the window, as if he
longed to make his escape by one way or the
other. "Oh, Lecount," he cried, piteously, "it's
such a large fortune! Let me wait a little, before
I leave it to anybody!"

To his surprise, Mrs. Lecount at once complied
with this characteristic request.

"I wish you to wait, sir," she replied. " I
have something important to say, before you add
another line to your will. A little while since,