Something far more serious,
if my opinion that her intellect is unsettled happens to turn out the
right one."
"I don't say it isn't my opinion, too," rejoined Noel Vanstone.
"Especially after what has happened to-day."
Captain Wragge immediately begged to know what the event alluded to
might be.
Noel Vanstone thereupon explained--with an infinite number of
parentheses all referring to himself--that Mrs. Lecount had put the
dreaded question relating to the little note in her master's pocket
barely an hour since. He had answered her inquiry as Mr. Bygrave had
advised him. On hearing that the accuracy of the personal description
had been fairly put to the test, and had failed in the one important
particular of the moles on the neck, Mrs. Lecount had considered a
little, and had then asked him whether he had shown her note to
Mr. Bygrave before the experiment was tried. He had answered in the
negative, as the only safe form of reply that he could think of on the
spur of the moment, and the housekeeper had then addressed him in these
strange and startling words: "You are keeping the truth from me, Mr.
Noel. You are trusting strangers, and doubting your old servant and your
old friend.
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