She rose and put her hand over his heart with as much mechanical attention and as little genuine interest as if she had been feeling the plates at dinner to ascertain if they had been properly warmed.  “Yes,” she went on, seating herself again, and resuming the exercise of the fan; “you are getting better already, Mr. Noel.—­Don’t ask me about this anonymous letter until you have thought for yourself, and have given your own opinion first.”  She went on with the fanning, and looked him hard in the face all the time.  “Think,” she said; “think, sir, without troubling yourself to express your thoughts.  Trust to my intimate sympathy with you to read them.  Yes, Mr. Noel, this letter is a paltry attempt to frighten you.  What does it say?  It says you are the object of a conspiracy directed by Miss Vanstone.  We know that already—­the lady of the inflamed eyes has told us.  We snap our fingers at the conspiracy.  What does the letter say next?  It says the writer has valuable information to give you if you will pay for it.  What did you call this person yourself just now, sir?”

“I called him a scoundrel,” said Noel Vanstone, recovering his self-importance, and raising himself gradually in his chair.

“I agree with you in that, sir, as I agree in everything else,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount.  “He is a scoundrel who really has this information and who means what he says, or he is a mouthpiece of Miss Vanstone’s, and she has caused this letter to be written for the purpose of puzzling us by another form of disguise.  Whether the letter is true, or whether the letter is false—­am I not reading your own wiser thoughts now, Mr. Noel?—­you know better than to put your enemies on their guard by employing the police in this matter too soon.  I quite agree with you—­no police just yet.  You will allow this anonymous man, or anonymous woman, to suppose you are easily frightened; you will lay a trap for the information in return for the trap laid for your money; you will answer the letter, and see what comes of the answer; and you will only pay the expense of employing the police when you know the expense is necessary.  I agree with you again—­no expense, if we can help it.  In every particular, Mr. Noel, my mind and your mind in this matter are one.”

“It strikes you in that light, Lecount—­does it?” said Noel Vanstone.  “I think so myself; I certainly think so.  I won’t pay the police a farthing if I can possibly help it.”  He took up the letter again, and became fretfully perplexed over a second reading of it.  “But the man wants money!” he broke out, impatiently.  “You seem to forget, Lecount, that the man wants money.”

“Money which you offer him, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount; “but—­as your thoughts have already anticipated—­money which you don’t give him.  No! no! you say to this man:  ‘Hold out your hand, sir;’ and when he has held it, you give him a smack for his pains, and put your own hand back in your pocket.—­I am so glad to see you laughing, Mr. Noel! so glad to see you getting back your good spirits.  We will answer the letter by advertisement, as the writer directs—­advertisement is so cheap!  Your poor hand is trembling a little—­shall I hold the pen for you?  I am not fit to do more; but I can always promise to hold the pen.”