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.
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