Captain Wragge listened with the closest attention to the narrative thus presented to him.  But one conclusion could be drawn from it—­it was a plain warning to him to hasten the end.

“I am not surprised,” he said, gravely, “to hear that you are inclining more favorably to my opinion.  After what you have just told me, Mr. Vanstone, no sensible man could do otherwise.  This is becoming serious.  I hardly know what results may not be expected to follow the communication of your approaching change in life to Mrs. Lecount.  My niece may be involved in those results.  She is nervous; she is sensitive in the highest degree; she is the innocent object of this woman’s unreasoning hatred and distrust.  You alarm me, sir!  I am not easily thrown off my balance, but I acknowledge you alarm me for the future.”  He frowned, shook his head, and looked at his visitor despondently.

Noel Vanstone began to feel uneasy.  The change in Mr. Bygrave’s manner seemed ominous of a reconsideration of his proposals from a new and unfavorable point of view.  He took counsel of his inborn cowardice and his inborn cunning, and proposed a solution of the difficulty discovered by himself.

“Why should we tell Lecount at all?” he asked.  “What right has Lecount to know?  Can’t we be married without letting her into the secret?  And can’t somebody tell her afterward when we are both out of her reach?”

Captain Wragge received this proposal with an expression of surprise which did infinite credit to his power of control over his own countenance.  His foremost object throughout the interview had been to conduct it to this point, or, in other words, to make the first idea of keeping the marriage a secret from Mrs. Lecount emanate from Noel Vanstone instead of from himself.  No one knew better than the captain that the only responsibilities which a weak man ever accepts are responsibilities which can be perpetually pointed out to him as resting exclusively on his own shoulders.

“I am accustomed to set my face against clandestine proceedings of all kinds,” said Captain Wragge.  “But there are exceptions to the strictest rules; and I am bound to admit, Mr. Vanstone, that your position in this matter is an exceptional position, if ever there was one yet.  The course you have just proposed—­however unbecoming I may think it, however distasteful it may be to myself—­would not only spare you a very serious embarrassment (to say the least of it), but would also protect you from the personal assertion of those pecuniary claims on the part of your housekeeper to which you have already adverted.  These are both desirable results to achieve—­to say nothing of the removal, on my side, of all apprehension of annoyance to my niece.  On the other hand, however, a marriage solemnized with such privacy as you propose must be a hasty marriage; for, as we are situated, the longer the delay the greater will be the risk that our secret may escape our keeping.  I am not