to
that, and we can talk as we go. I don't see any one who appears to be
dogging me at present. Where were you going?"

"I will go wherever you go, father," said Cynthia.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Westwood was silent until he found himself with his daughter inside the
cab.

"Where did you tell him to go?" he then asked of her.

"To St. Pancras Station. I thought that we could more easily evade
watchers at a big railway-station than anywhere else."

"They will watch the stations," said the man. "I may have got the start,
and I may not. The stations are hardly safe."

"Let the man drive on for a few minutes while you tell me the reason why
you think you are watched," said Cynthia, suspecting panic; "he cannot
be going far out of the way, and, if we change our minds we can tell him
so presently."

"Well," said Westwood, evidently recovering nerve and self-possession
under the influence of his daughter's calmer manner and speaking in an
easier tone, "it's that woman Meldreth--she is a spy. Who do you think
came to her house yesterday but Mrs. Vane? The very woman who has most
reason to dread me and to wish to get me shut up in prison, if my idea
of her is true! I think she wanted to see me with her own eyes. She
looked at me as if she would read me through and through."

"Where did you meet her, father?"

"In the street. I was asked to show her Mrs. Gunn's house. It was pure
accident of course, but it gave us an opportunity of looking at each
other."

"Did you go back to the house after that?"

"Yes, I did, my girl, because I had left my portmanteau there with
papers and money, without which I should soon be in 'Queer Street.' Yes,
I went back, and found Mrs. Vane gone. But the Meldreth woman had a
queer look about her, and I suspected what she was about, though I don't
know that I could have balked her but for my peculiar constitution.
Sleeping-stuff don't have no effect on me, my dear--it never had. They
tried it in the prison when I was there at first, and couldn't sleep for
thinking of the woods and the open fields and my own little girl--and it
nearly drove me mad. Sabina Meldreth gave me some sleeping-stuff in my
tea last night."

"What for, father?"

"That's what I wanted to know. When I felt the old pricks and twitches
beginning, I pretended to be very sleepy, and I lay down on the sofa and
went off, as she thought, into a deep slumber. Presently she came in,
and--what do you think, Cynthy?--she be