CHAPTER XII.

TOWARDS three o'clock, that afternoon, Captain
Wragge stopped at the nearest station to Ossory
which the railway passed in its course through
Essex. Inquiries made on the spot, informed
him that he might drive to St. Crux, remain there
for a quarter of an hour, and return to the
station in time for an evening train to London.
In ten minutes more, the captain was on the road
again, driving rapidly in the direction of the
coast.

After proceeding some miles on the highway,
the carriage turned off, and the coachman involved
himself in an intricate network of crossroads.

"Are we far from St. Crux?" asked the captain,
growing impatient, after mile on mile had
been passed, without a sign of reaching the
journey's end.

"You'll see the house, sir, at the next turn in
the road," said the man.

The next turn in the road brought them within
view of the open country again. Ahead of the
carriage, Captain Wragge saw a long dark line
against the sky—the line of the sea-wall which
protects the low coast of Essex from inundation.
The flat intermediate country was intersected by
a labyrinth of tidal streams, winding up from the
invisible sea in strange fantastic curves—rivers at
high water, and channels of mud at low. On his
right hand was a quaint little village, mostly
composed of wooden houses, straggling down to
the brink of one of the tidal streams. On his
left hand, farther away, rose the gloomy ruins
of an Abbey, with a long, low, desolate pile
of building, of vast extent and great age, attached
to it. One of the streams from the sea
(called in Essex, "backwaters") curled almost
entirely round the house. Another, from an
opposite quarter, appeared to run straight
through the grounds, and to separate one side of
the shapeless mass of buildings, which was in
moderate repair, from another, which was little
better than a ruin. Bridges of wood, and bridges
of brick, crossed the stream, and gave access to
the house from all points of the compass. No
human creature appeared in the neighbourhood,
and no sound was heard but the hoarse
barking of a house-dog from an invisible courtyard.

"Which door shall I drive to, sir?" asked the
coachman. "The front, or the back?"

"The back," said Captain Wragge, feeling
that the less notice he attracted in his
present position, the safer that position might
be.

The carriage twice crossed the stream before
the coachman made his way through the grounds
into a dreary enclosure of stone. At an open
door on the inhabited side of the place, sat a
weather-beaten old man-servant, busily at work
on a half-finished model of a ship. He rose and
came to the carriage door, lifting up his spectacles
on his forehead, and looking disconcerted
at the appearance of a stranger.

"Is Mr. Noel Vanstone staying here?" asked
Captain Wragge.

"Yes, sir," replied the old man. "Mr. Noel
came yesterday."

"Take that card to Mr. Vanstone, if you
please," said the captain; "and say I am waiting
here to see him."

In a few minutes, Mr. Noel Vanstone made his
appearance breathless and eager; absorbed in
anxiety for news from Aldborough. Captain
Wragge opened the carriage door, seized his outstretched
hand, and pulled him in without ceremony.

"Your housekeeper has gone," whispered the
captain, "and you are to be married on Monday.
Don't agitate yourself, and don't express your
feelings—there isn't time for it. Get the first
active servant you can find in the house, to pack
your bag in ten minutes—take leave of the admiral
—and come back at once with me to the
London train."

Mr. Noel Vanstone faintly attempted to ask a
question. The captain declined to hear it.

"As much talk as you like on the road," he
said. "Time is too precious for talking here.
How do we know Lecount may not think better
of it? How do we know she may not turn back,
before she gets to Zurich?"

That startling consideration terrified Mr. Noel
Vanstone into instant submission.

"What shall I say to the admiral!" he asked,
helplessly.

"Tell him you are going to be married, to be
sure! What does it matter, now Lecount's
back is turned? If he wonders you didn't tell
him before, say it's a runaway match, and the
bride is waiting for you. Stop! Any letters addressed
to you, in your absence, will be sent to
this place, of course? Give the admiral these
envelopes, and tell him to forward your letters
under cover to me. I am an old customer at the
hotel we are going to; and if we find the place
full, the landlord may be depended on to take
care of any letters with my name on them. A
safe address in London for your correspondence,
may be of the greatest importance. How do we
know Lecount may not write to you on her way
to Zurich?"

"What a head you have got," cried Mr. Noel
Vanstone, eagerly taking the envelopes. "You
think of everything."

He left the carriage in high excitement, and
ran back into the house. In ten minutes more
Captain Wragge had him in safe custody, and the
horses started on their return journey.

The travellers reached London in good time
that evening, and found accommodation at the
hotel.

Knowing the restless, inquisitive nature of the
man he had to deal with, Captain Wragge had
anticipated some little difficulty and embarrassment
in meeting the questions which Mr. Noel
Vanstone might put to him on the way to London.
To his great relief, a startling domestic