out among the _demi-monde_ he found the
woman--quite an old lady now, but nearly as well-kept and quite as jolly
as ever, presiding over a group of soiled divinities at a neat retreat
on Griswold Street.

Through the purchase of a vile bottle of wine the old lady's lips were
opened, and her tongue began a perfect gallop about Bland and Lilly
Mercer.

She gave the latter the reputation of being one of the shrewdest women
she had ever met, and laughed until the tears came into her eyes over
the way in which she had "played it" on Bland, who had picked her up for
a fool, and had himself been terribly sold. Then she launched into
vituperations towards the young minister, who had accused her of
"standing in" with the girl in the robbery, when she had been as badly
fooled as himself. Whatever she had been and was, she said, there wasn't
a dishonest hair in her head; which assertion Bangs had reason to
believe to be literally true, as he noticed that she wore a wig.

She then in great glee told him how she had "got even" with Bland by
"giving him away" to the papers, which had soon taken the feathers out
of _his_ cap, she remarked with much satisfaction, broken his mother's
heart, who died and willed all her property to the good cause of
furnishing the heathen with an occasional fat missionary steak, and
finally drove Bland out of Detroit, when he had gone to some Eastern
city and, under another name, with his fine manners, airy ways, and good
clothes, was playing it fine on some old Spiritualist millionaire out
our way.

When the vision of the magnificent Harcout--which was almost a constant
one, as he rushed into my office on the slightest pretext whatever, big
with his own importance and unusually full of enthusiasm over "our
case"--flitted before my eyes, it gave to me additional romance in the
work, in the sense that here, after many years, the man whom Mrs.
Winslow in her early career had so magnificently duped, had
unconsciously become one of her most relentless pursuers.

But it was a matter for speculation whether Harcout knew her to be the
person who had so neatly taken him in, or whether he had risen to this
condition of fervor in his work merely to impress Lyon with his useful
friendship. I inclined to the latter opinion, however, as I was
satisfied that if he had known with whom he was dealing he would have
given up all expectations of continued favor and patronage from Lyon,
and left Rochester as hastily as