The half-hour during which he was alone with her passed like
five minutes to him. When that time had elapsed, and when she
suddenly left him--to obey a previously-arranged summons to her aunt's
presence--miser as he was, he would have paid at that moment five golden
sovereigns out of his pocket for five golden minutes more passed in her
society.
The door had hardly closed on Magdalen before it opened again, and the
captain walked in. He entered on the explanations which his visitor
naturally expected from him with the unceremonious abruptness of a man
hard pressed for time, and determined to make the most of every moment
at his disposal.
"Since we last saw each other," he began, "I have been reckoning up the
chances for and against us as we stand at present. The result on my
own mind is this: If you are still at Aldborough when that letter from
Zurich reaches Mrs. Lecount, all the pains we have taken will have been
pains thrown away. If your housekeeper had fifty brothers all dying
together, she would throw the whole fifty over sooner than leave you
alone at Sea View while we are your neighbors at North Shingles."
Noel Vanstone's flushed cheek turned pale with dismay.
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