s face, she believed that she recognized
her husband.

Clemenceau on her track! Clemenceau, in concord with the bravest who had
smothered her gallant in the mud! she had scorned him too much! He was
capable even of cowardly acts, of being revenged for this renewed
disgrace upon his ill-fated house!

This time her feet were unchained and she flew up the hill. She thought
of nothing but to escape the double revenge of the husband she wronged,
and Von Sendlingen whom she had cheated.

She took her ticket mechanically and entered a coach marked for "Ladies
Only."

They whisked toward Paris swiftly, before any sinister face looked in at
the window, or she had time to reflect. In her pocket was the real case
of the sight-drafts for which she had palmed a duplicate filled with cut
paper, upon the unlucky viscount. She was rich enough to make a home
wherever money reigns--a broad enough domain.

The arrival of her relative and the summons to his sick-bed made her
pause in her movements suddenly altered by the death of the viscount.
She was almost happy in her foresight by which she had defrauded him and
his associates. Now, the loss of him stood by itself; she was free to
use the money as she pleased. She feared Von Sendlingen but little,
since she would have a good start of him if he pursued.

Should she keep on or see her uncle? Pity for him, a stranger, perhaps
dying in a hotel, most inhospitable shelter to an invalid, did not enter
her heart. She had seen her lover murdered without a spark of
communication, and was now glad that he could never call her to account
for the theft. But a vague expectation of benefiting by the pretense of
affection--the desire to have some support in case of Von Sendlingen
attacking--the excuse and cover her ministration at the sick-bed would
afford, all these reasons united to guide her to the Hotel de l'Aigle
aux deux Becs, in the rue Caumartin.

Her uncle was no longer there. His stroke of paralysis had frightened
the proprietor who suggested his removal to a private hospital, but M.
Dobronowska had preferred to be attended to in the house, a little out
of St. Denis, of an acquaintance. It was Mr. Lesperon's, the abode of a
once noted poetess, whose husband had enjoyed Dobronowska's hospitality
in Finland and who had tried to repay the obligation.

Cesarine recalled the name; this lady had been a friend of her aunt's
and she felt she would not be intruding. After playing the nurse, b