his humbuggery upon Mr.
Lyon!"

With this admonition I left Le Compte's, and soon found Lyon in his
office. We arranged that he should pay no further attention to either Le
Compte's or any other person's communications concerning this case, but
should at once turn them over to his attorneys, who should immediately
forward them to me after reading them, as I was satisfied that if Le
Compte had any evidence he would never swear to it when the case was
tried, and only desired to blackmail Lyon on his own account, while
playing the necessary male friend and confidant to Mrs. Winslow, who for
some reason seemed to have a strange and unexplainable liking for the
little Monsieur, although exercising great care that her passion for him
should not become a matter for public knowledge and comment.

CHAPTER XII

The Raven of the Detroit Cottage in another Character.-- Mrs.
Winslow yearns for a retired Montreal Banker.-- Love's
Rivalry.-- A mysterious Note.-- The Response.-- Another
Trip to Port Charlotte by four Hearts that beat as one.--
What Mr. Pinkerton, as one of the party, sees and hears.--
"Jones of Rochester."-- Le Compte and Mrs. Winslow resolve
to fly to Paris, "the magnificent, the beautiful, the
sublime!"-- "My God, are they all that way?"

At last the promised Saturday came, and there were at least three people
in Rochester who looked forward to a pleasant day, and were up betimes
that they might get an early start. Mrs. Winslow, from her sumptuous
apartments, looked out upon the streets and the glorious morning as if
it had come too soon--as it always does to those who have not clean
hearts and clean lives--and, _en deshabille_, gazed down through her
rich lace curtains upon the early passers stepping off with a brisk
tread to their separate labors, with a look of contempt.

Nature had been wantonly generous with Mrs. Winslow, and as she stood
there in her loose morning robes, the first soft breaths that come with
the sun from the far-off Orient playing hide-and-seek among the
sumptuous hangings of her room, and giving just the least possible
motion to her matchlessly luxuriant black hair, while the mellow and
golden rays of the sun, which was just peeping over the roofs and the
chimneys, shimmered upon her through the curtains, lighting her great
gray eyes with a wondrous lustrousness, heightening the fine color of
her face, and giving to her voluptuous form