" His next proceeding was to take some half-dozen envelopes
out of the case, and to direct them all alike to the following address:
"Thomas Bygrave, Esq., Mussared's Hotel, Salisbury Street, Strand,
London." After carefully placing the envelopes and the card in his
breast-pocket, he shut up the desk. As he rose from the writing-table,
Magdalen came into the room.
The captain took a moment to decide on the best method of opening the
interview, and determined, in his own phrase, to dash at it. In two
words he told Magdalen what had happened, and informed her that Monday
was to be her wedding-day.
He was prepared to quiet her, if she burst into a frenzy of passion; to
reason with her, if she begged for time; to sympathize with her, if she
melted into tears. To his inexpressible surprise, results falsified
all his calculations. She heard him without uttering a word, without
shedding a tear. When he had done, she dropped into a chair. Her large
gray eyes stared at him vacantly. In one mysterious instant all her
beauty left her; her face stiffened awfully, like the face of a
corpse. For the first time in the captain's experience of her,
fear--all-mastering fear--had taken possession of her, body and soul.
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