y angel, and remove them to their travelling cage
upstairs."

"Admirable tenderness!" said Madame Fosco, admiring her husband, with a
last viperish look in my direction. She took up the cage carefully,
and left the room.

The Count looked at his watch. In spite of his resolute assumption of
composure, he was getting anxious for the agent's arrival. The candles
had long since been extinguished, and the sunlight of the new morning
poured into the room. It was not till five minutes past seven that the
gate bell rang, and the agent made his appearance. He was a foreigner
with a dark beard.

"Mr. Hartright--Monsieur Rubelle," said the Count, introducing us. He
took the agent (a foreign spy, in every line of his face, if ever there
was one yet) into a corner of the room, whispered some directions to
him, and then left us together. "Monsieur Rubelle," as soon as we were
alone, suggested with great politeness that I should favour him with
his instructions. I wrote two lines to Pesca, authorising him to
deliver my sealed letter "to the bearer," directed the note, and handed
it to Monsieur Rubelle.

The agent waited with me till his employer returned, equipped in
travelling costume. The Count examined the address of my letter before
he dismissed the agent. "I thought so!" he said, turning on me with a
dark look, and altering again in his manner from that moment.

He completed his packing, and then sat consulting a travelling map,
making entries in his pocket-book, and looking every now and then
impatiently at his watch. Not another word, addressed to myself,
passed his lips. The near approach of the hour for his departure, and
the proof he had seen of the communication established between Pesca
and myself, had plainly recalled his whole attention to the measures
that were necessary for securing his escape.

A little before eight o'clock, Monsieur Rubelle came back with my
unopened letter in his hand. The Count looked carefully at the
superscription and the seal, lit a candle, and burnt the letter. "I
perform my promise," he said, "but this matter, Mr. Hartright, shall
not end here."

The agent had kept at the door the cab in which he had returned. He and
the maid-servant now busied themselves in removing the luggage. Madame
Fosco came downstairs, thickly veiled, with the travelling cage of the
white mice in her hand. She neither spoke to me nor looked towards me.
Her husband escorted her to the cab. "Follow