you in with my relative’s works of Art.  To-morrow you cut me on the Parade.  The day after you refuse to go out, you get tired of Aldborough, and you allow Mrs. Lecount to make her suggestion.  The next day you accept the suggestion.  And the next day to that you go to St. Crux.  Once more, my dear sir!  Thumb—­works of Art.  Forefinger—­cut me on the Parade.  Middle finger—­tired of Aldborough.  Third finger—­take Lecount’s advice.  Little finger—­off to St. Crux.  Nothing can be clearer—­nothing can be easier to do.  Is there anything you don’t understand?  Anything that I can explain over again before you go?”

“Only one thing,” said Noel Vanstone.  “Is it settled that I am not to come here again before I go to St. Crux?”

“Most decidedly!” answered the captain.  “The whole success of the enterprise depends on your keeping away.  Mrs. Lecount will try the credibility of everything you say to her by one test—­the test of your communicating, or not, with this house.  She will watch you night and day!  Don’t call here, don’t send messages, don’t write letters; don’t even go out by yourself.  Let her see you start for St. Crux on her suggestion, with the absolute certainty in her own mind that you have followed her advice without communicating it in any form whatever to me or to my niece.  Do that, and she must believe you, on the best of all evidence for our interests, and the worst for hers—­the evidence of her own senses.”

With those last words of caution, he shook the little man warmly by the hand and sent him home on the spot.

CHAPTER X.

ON returning to Sea View, Noel Vanstone executed the instructions which prescribed his line of conduct for the first of the five days with unimpeachable accuracy.  A faint smile of contempt hovered about Mrs. Lecount’s lips while the story of Mr. Bygrave’s attempt to pass off his spurious pictures as originals was in progress, but she did not trouble herself to utter a single word of remark when it had come to an end.  “Just what I said!” thought Noel Vanstone, cunningly watching her face; “she doesn’t believe a word of it!”

The next day the meeting occurred on the Parade.  Mr. Bygrave took off his hat, and Noel Vanstone looked the other way.  The captain’s start of surprise and scowl of indignation were executed to perfection, but they plainly failed to impose on Mrs. Lecount.  “I am afraid, sir, you have offended Mr. Bygrave to-day,” she ironically remarked.  “Happily for you, he is an excellent Christian! and I venture to predict that he will forgive you to-morrow.”

Noel Vanstone wisely refrained from committing himself to an answer.  Once more he privately applauded his own penetration; once more he triumphed over his ingenious friend.