There was not a doubt
of it, in the strongest of all his interests--the interest of saving his
money--he would wait.
"Checkmate for Mr. Bygrave!" thought Mrs. Lecount, as she sealed and
directed the letter. "The battle is over--the game is played out."
While Mrs. Lecount was providing for her master's future security at Sea
View, events were in full progress at North Shingles.
As soon as Captain Wragge recovered his astonishment at the
housekeeper's appearance on his own premises, he hurried into the house,
and, guided by his own forebodings of the disaster that had happened,
made straight for his wife's room.
Never, in all her former experience, had poor Mrs. Wragge felt the full
weight of the captain's indignation as she felt it now. All the little
intelligence she naturally possessed vanished at once in the whirlwind
of her husband's rage. The only plain facts which he could extract from
her were two in number. In the first place, Magdalen's rash desertion
of her post proved to have no better reason to excuse it than Magdalen's
incorrigible impatience: she had passed a sleepless night; she had
risen feverish and wretched; and she had gone out, reckless of all
consequences, to cool her burning head in the fresh air.
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