Simply mentioning her name, she passed by the porter with the air of
one who knew her road, although it was probably the first time she had
come there. On the sixth floor she knocked as Hyde had done, and was
admitted much as he had been.

There was no disguise about her, however, and she sent in her name as
"Mrs. Wilders, just arrived from England, and most anxious to see Mr.
Hobson."

"You, Cyprienne!" said the man we know, who answered to the names of
both Hobson and Ledantec. "In Paris! This was quite unnecessary. I am
arranging everything. You had my letter?"

"Pshaw! Hippolyte, you can't befool me."

"Why this tone? I tell you I have done everything."

"You may think so, but in the meantime Rupert has stolen a march on
me. He has got the papers--"

"Impossible!"

"It is so. Got them, and placed them, with a full statement, in Lord
Essendine's hands."

"How do you know this?"

"From Lord Essendine's own lips?"

"How can he have done this? He--a prisoner."

"Are you sure of that?"

"He is fast by the leg. Come and see him. He is in the next room."

"Here? In our power?"

"Yes: let us go and see him at once."

There was a fierce gleam in her eyes, as though she wished to stab
him, wherever she found him, to the heart.

Hyde was where we had left him, still bound hand and foot to the
bedstead. He had spent a miserable night, he was stiff and sore from
his strange position, and they had given him little or no food. But
his manner was defiant, and his air exulting, as he saw Ledantec and
Cyprienne approach.

"Have you come to release me? It's about time. You will gain nothing
by keeping me here."

"Dog! I hate you!" cried Mrs. Wilders, as she struck him a cruel,
cowardly blow on the face.

"A pleasant greeting from the woman I made my wife."

"Would that fate had never thrown us together; that I had never heard
your name!"

"No one can wish it more sincerely than myself," replied Gascoigne.
"It was you who wrecked and ruined my life."

"And what have you done to me, Rupert Gascoigne? Could you not leave
me in peace? Why follow me to persecute me, to rob me and my son--"

"Of the proceeds of your infamy?" interrupted Gascoigne, or Hyde, as I
prefer to call him; "I will tell you. Because you dared to plot
against a man I esteem. Whatever has happened to Stanislas McKay, he
owes it, I feel confident, to you. I may never see him again--"

"You never will, and for a double reason. Do not h