fered, and her mode of procedure being suspected, handbills
setting forth her appearance were posted in York. It was one of these
bills that attracted the attention of a certain Captain Wragge.

Captain Wragge was the stepson of Mrs. Vanstone's mother, and had
persisted in regarding himself as a member of her family, and, having
known of the real relationship that existed between his half-sister and
Mr. Andrew Vanstone, had obtained from the latter a small annual subsidy
as the price of his silence. A confessed rogue, the captain imagined he
saw in this handbill an opportunity of re-stocking his exhausted
exchequer.

As he wandered on the walls of York, pondering how he should act, he met
Magdalen herself, and at once greeted her as a relative. The girl would
have avoided him, but on his pointing out that unless she placed herself
under his protection she was bound to be discovered and taken back to
her friends, she consented to accompany him to his lodgings. There he
introduced her to his wife, a tall, gaunt woman with a large,
good-natured, vacant face, who lived in a state of bemused terror of her
husband, who bullied and dragooned her according to his mood.

After listening to the frank exposition of his character and his method
of living, Magdalen decided to accept Captain Wragge's assistance. On
certain terms, Wragge agreed to train her for the stage and secure her
engagements, taking a half share of any money she might earn. In return
for these profits, he agreed to carry out certain inquiries whenever she
might think it necessary. As to the nature of these inquiries, she, for
the time being, preserved silence.

Magdalen's talent for acting proved highly successful, and under the
direction of the captain she began rapidly to make a reputation for
herself, and at the end of six months she had saved between six and
seven hundred pounds. She now decided that it was time to put her plan
of retribution into execution.

At her instructions, Captain Wragge had discovered that Michael Vanstone
was dead and that his son, Noel Vanstone, had succeeded to the property,
and was now living with his father's old housekeeper, a certain Swiss
lady, the widow of a professor of science, by name Mrs. Lecount, in
Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. The remaining information that Wragge obtained
regarding the Vanstones was to the effect that the deceased Michael had
a great friend in Admiral Bartram, whose nephew George was the son of
Mr. An