t, but if Rudolph and
Jerome were thrown off the scent, it must have been done on purpose, and
by a man who had a cogent reason and exceptional resources."

"I believe the question is now one between my brother and myself,"
replied Geraldine, with a shade of offence in his tone.

"I permit it to be so, Colonel Geraldine," returned Prince Florizel.
"Perhaps, for that very reason, you should be all the more ready to
accept my counsels. But enough. That girl in yellow dances well."

And the talk veered into the ordinary topics of a Paris ball-room in the
Carnival.

Silas remembered where he was, and that the hour was already near at
hand when he ought to be upon the scene of his assignation. The more he
reflected the less he liked the prospect, and as at that moment an eddy
in the crowd began to draw him in the direction of the door, he
suffered it to carry him away without resistance. The eddy stranded him
in a corner under the gallery, where his ear was immediately struck with
the voice of Madame Zephyrine. She was speaking in French with the young
man of the blond locks who had been pointed out by the strange Britisher
not half an hour before.

"I have a character at stake," she said, "or I would put no other
condition than my heart recommends. But you have only to say so much to
the porter, and he will let you go by without a word."

"But why this talk of debt?" objected her companion.

"Heavens!" said she, "do you think I do not understand my own hotel?"

And she went by, clinging affectionately to her companion's arm.

This put Silas in mind of his billet.

"Ten minutes hence," thought he, "and I may be walking with as beautiful
a woman as that, and even better dressed--perhaps a real lady, possibly
a woman of title."

And then he remembered the spelling, and was a little downcast.

"But it may have been written by her maid," he imagined.

The clock was only a few minutes from the hour, and this immediate
proximity set his heart beating at a curious and rather disagreeable
speed. He reflected with relief that he was in no way bound to put in an
appearance. Virtue and cowardice were together, and he made once more
for the door, but this time, of his own accord, and battling against the
stream of people which was now moving in a contrary direction. Perhaps
this prolonged resistance wearied him, or perhaps he was in that frame
of mind when merely to continue in the same determination for a certain
number