I returned, as before, to my choice of alternatives.

Which way did my private interests point?
Toward trusting the chance of her wanting me again?
Toward threatening her with the interference of her relatives and friends?
Or toward making the information which I possessed a marketable commodity between the wealthy branch of the family and myself?
The last of the three was the alternative I had chosen in the case of the father.

I chose it once more in the case of the son.
The train started for London nearly four hours since, and took her away in it, accompanied by Mrs.Wragge.
My wife is too great a fool, poor soul, to be actively valuable in the present emergency; but she will be passively useful in keeping up Miss Vanstone's connection with me--and, in consideration of that circumstance, I consent to brush my own trousers, shave my own chin, and submit to the other inconveniences of waiting on myself for a limited period.

Any faint glimmerings of sense which Mrs.Wragge may have formerly possessed appear to have now finally taken their leave of her.
On receiving permission to go to London, she favored us immediately with two inquiries.

Might she do some shopping?
and might she leave the cookery-book behind her?
Miss Vanstone said Yes to one question, and I said Yes to the other--and from that moment, Mrs.Wragge has existed in a state of perpetual laughter.