fter the discovery we have made upstairs, I leave you to consider for
yourself what your life is worth."

At those terrible words, the ebbing resolution in him ran out to the
last drop. "Don't frighten me!" he pleaded; "I have been frightened
enough already." He rose, and dragged his chair after him, round the
table to Mrs. Lecount's side. He sat down and caressingly kissed her
hand. "You good creature!" he said, in a sinking voice. "You excellent
Lecount! Tell me what to do. I'm full of resolution--I'll do anything to
save my life!"

"Have you got writing materials in the room, sir?" asked Mrs. Lecount.
"Will you put them on the table, if you please?"

While the writing materials were in process of collection, Mrs. Lecount
made a new demand on the resources of her traveling-bag. She took two
papers from it, each indorsed in the same neat commercial handwriting.
One was described as "Draft for proposed Will," and the other as "Draft
for proposed Letter." When she placed them before her on the table, her
hand shook a little; and she applied the smelling-salts, which she had
brought with her in Noel Vanstone's interests, to her own nostrils.

"I had hoped, when I came here, Mr. Noel," she proceeded, "to have given
you more time for consideration than it seems safe to give you now.
When you first told me of your wife's absence in London, I thought it
probable that the object of her journey was to see her sister and Miss
Garth. Since the horrible discovery we have made upstairs, I am inclined
to alter that opinion. Your wife's determination not to tell you who the
friends are whom she has gone to see, fills me with alarm. She may
have accomplices in London--accomplices, for anything we know to the
contrary, in this house. All three of your servants, sir, have taken the
opportunity, in turn, of coming into the room and looking at me. I don't
like their looks! Neither you nor I know what may happen from day to
day, or even from hour to hour. If you take my advice, you will get the
start at once of all possible accidents; and, when the carriage comes
back, you will leave this house with me!"

"Yes, yes!" he said, eagerly; "I'll leave the house with you. I wouldn't
stop here by myself for any sum of money that could be offered me. What
do we want the pen and ink for? Are you to write, or am I?"

"You are to write, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "The means taken for
promoting your own safety are to be means set in motion, from be