Miss Vanstone, the elder,
whose unexpected presence at Aldborough might have done wonders--whose
voice in the hall at North Shingles, even if she had been admitted
no further, might have reached her sister's ears and led to instant
results--Miss Vanstone, the elder, was out of the country, and was not
likely to return for a month at least. Look as anxiously as Mrs. Lecount
might along the course which she had hitherto followed, she failed
to see her way through the accumulated obstacles which now barred her
advance.
Other women in this position might have waited until circumstances
altered, and helped them. Mrs. Lecount boldly retraced her steps, and
determined to find her way to her end in a new direction. Resigning for
the present all further attempt to prove that the false Miss Bygrave was
the true Magdalen Vanstone, she resolved to narrow the range of her next
efforts; to leave the actual question of Magdalen's identity untouched;
and to rest satisfied with convincing her master of this simple
fact--that the young lady who was charming him at North Shingles, and
the disguised woman who had terrified him in Vauxhall Walk, were one and
the same person.
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