True; I was in hopes that you could tell me how this Mr. Butt was in possession of the fact that Helston was in Paris and endeavouring to dispose of the jewels. That it is so I have reason to know, since I have just come from M. Monteur, a diamondmerchant-—'

'In the Rue du Bris?' interrupted the other.

'Mr. Butt has been there on business, to my knowledge.'
'Indeed! On what business?"

'I believe to sell some family diamonds. That is what I thought you came about. There is something amiss with them, I'm certain. I thought they might be lying about the room when you came in, which frightened me.'

'Have you ever seen them?' inquired the lawyer quickly.
Yes; Mr. Butt showed them to me quite recently.'

'Are they like these?' inquired Mr. Barlow, producing the drawing of the parure.

She shook her head. I cannot tell,' she said; they have been taken out of their setting; that is what first aroused my suspicions.'

"You say, "first aroused." Did anything afterwards confirm them?'

"Well, I cannot say they were confirmed before you put your questions. This man, however-my husband, as he is called-has been nervous, fidgetty, and, I think, alarmed of late. He receives many telegrams which seem to annoy him. He is out, as he says, on business, all day long, and returns dissatisfied and disappointed. He was particularly so after his visit to the Rue de Bris. I know he went there, for I waited for him in the cab outside.' I think I have it,' exclaimed Mr. Barlow eagerly. See here, this is a full-length portrait of Matthew Helston; does it bear any resemblance to Mr. Butt?'

Again she shook her head.

Not in the least,' she said con

Please, however, to describe

temptuously. It is Hyperion to a Satyr.'
Mr. Barlow's countenance fell.
the man.'

'He is of middle height and rather stoutly built. His hair is brown; his expression, as I have said, dissatisfied and gloomy.' Mr. Barlow struck his palms together with a cry of triumph. It is as I suspected; though unlike to the eye, the descriptions of these two men tally tolerably well. Helston never went to the Rue de Bris, but only Mr. Butt; and Mr. Butt is Captain Langton,'

It is possible,' returned the other coolly, He told me but

yesterday that he married me under a feigned name. Does that throw light on anything?'

'It does, it does; much light,' answered the lawyer thoughtfully; but not enough. The question of what became of Helston on that night in Moor Street, even if this Langton is the thief, remains as dark as ever.'

'Moor Street-Moor Street!' repeated the other; 'where have I seen that name before?'

'Think, madam, think,' exclaimed the lawyer earnestly. Everything may hang upon your reply.'

'No, I remember now,' she said, after a moment's reflection. "I have not seen it, but I have heard it spoken of.'

'By whom? By Butt?'

'Yes. He has read a telegram in my presence with Moor Street in it. I feel certain of it.'

'How came he to do that?'

'He did not know that he was doing it. These telegrams which are continually arriving seem to excite him strangely.' Can you let me see one of them?'

'I cannot; he destroys them directly he has read them. But stay-they sometimes come in his absence. I will open the next and let you have a copy of it. I will search his papers; no stone shall be left unturned to aid you in your discovery.'

'But that may get you into trouble; the man is, by your own showing, a ruffian, and, as we have now reason to believe, in desperate case.'

I told you that for Matthew Helston's sake I would lay down my life,' she interrupted vehemently. But you need not fear on wits, and will be careful.

To

my account. I am a match for him in That reminds me that he may return at any moment. He must not find you here. Give me your address, and trust to me. morrow morning at latest-perhaps to-night-you will have a line from me.'

'But money may be wanting,' urged Mr. Barlow, producing his purse.

No, no,' she cried imploringly; I have a few shillings of my own, which will be sufficient; let me do him what good I can at my own cost. Go, go--and trust to me.'

Mr. Barlow did trust implicitly in her good will to help him, He understood, if he did not wholly appreciate, the woman's desire to show her gratitude to Matthew, and her devotion to his interests; but of the result he was far from sanguine. That Langton was at all events a participator in the robbery in Moor Street he had little doubt; that the diamonds in his possession were Lady

!

Pargiter's he was almost certain, since M. Monteur had recognised them; but the proof of this, he felt, would be far from easy. If the girl had still possessed any hold upon Langton's affections, she might, perhaps, have wormed out of him something of great importance; but it was plain that the ill-assorted pair had quarrelled. The man must know that, every moment during which the jewels remained undisposed of, his position was growing more perilous; he was already, she had said, suspicious and alarmed; how was it possible, then, that she could throw him off his guard, so as to obtain from him any information? She had promised to search his effects, but it was very improbable that he would suffer anything of a compromising character to be in existence. If even he could be seized (which he could not, since there was no warrant for his apprehension), and the diamonds found upon him, that would only affect the man himself-it would not bring him (Mr. Barlow) one hair's-breadth nearer to the object of his mission.

He went back to his hotel, locked himself into his room, and set to work to think the matter over; but it surprised himself, considering the strength of the impressions and suspicions which crowded his mind, how very little he could make of them as regarded Matthew. That Langton, indeed, had an object in representing Helston as the thief was evident; but there was no sort of clue to his having any real knowledge either of him or his whereabouts.

In the end he wrote a long and minute account of all that had come to his knowledge since his arrival in Paris to Mr. Brail; and bade him hold himself in readiness to act at once on the receipt of any telegram.

Up to midnight, at which hour he retired to seek the rest he so much needed, no message had arrived for him from Phoebe Mayson.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE VICTIM.

NOTWITHSTANDING his anxieties and the eider-down quilt, Mr. Barlow slept soundly for some hours, and would doubtless have continued to sleep, but for a very curious circumstance. He had been dreaming, of course, of Amy. There were some obstacles to his union with her (quite different from those which really existed), and he had overcome them by running away with her (which in real life he would certainly never have dreamt of), only he had no money to pay the coachman, who was (naturally enough) very impatient.

'I am the coachman,' the man was saying. Remember the coachman, coachman, coachman.' When he went so far as to poke Mr. Barlow in the ribs with his whip-handle, that gentleman awoke and found himself in the presence of two soldiers in uniform, one of whom was bringing the rays of a dark-lantern to bear directly upon his half-closed eyes, and the other was addressing him as Cochon."

6

'Who the deuce are you?' exclaimed Mr. Barlow with all an Englishman's indignation at this intrusion in his apartment, and especially at a military occupation of it.

'We are here in the name of the law,' was the reply in French. 'You must come along with us immediately.'

One word of this only, 'loi,' was intelligible to Mr. Barlow, but it helped him to understand that, in spite of their swords and their furious aspect, these men were policemen, and not soldiers.

His hand dived under his pillow and produced a phrase-book and a pocket dictionary, which never left the neighbourhood of his person, and by aid of the former he inquired what they wanted, and what was the matter.

By the aid of the latter he learnt that he was wanted at the Hôtel de la Fontaine, and that the cause was MURDER.

'Great Heavens! it must be poor Phoebe Mayson,' cried he, with a start of horror; and that villain Langton must have

done it.'

His excitement and indignation were so extreme that the manifestation of them, had he been accused of the crime, would in all probability-duly manipulated by the Judge of Instruction-have brought him to the guillotine; but fortunately the suspicions of the police had not taken this direction.

He sprang out of bed and huddled on his clothes with fingers that trembled with passion, and even with remorse. It flashed upon him in an instant that the poor girl had come to her death at the hands of her paramour, in the performance of the service which he (Barlow) had himself suggested. For the first time in his life or at all events since he had served his articles-he burst into expressions which were certainly not to be found in his French and English dictionary. The beauty of the woman, the wretchedness of her situation, her tenderness, her resolution (alas! so selfsacrificing) to obtain at all risks some tidings of her lost love, recurred to him with terrible force and distinctness, and stirred his nature to its depths. The wild beast of force that lives within the sinews of man' was aroused within him. For the

moment the one wish of this peace-loving, law-abiding man was to find himself face to face with her assassin.

As he passed out of the gate between the two gensdarmes, and got into the fiacre awaiting them there, the porter exclaimed to himself, 'There goes a murderer! Who would have thought it to have seen him yesterday? Bah! why should one wonder? He is English.'

But even if he had understood him Mr. Barlow would have cared nothing.

Est-il mort?' inquired the poor fellow of his companions piteously, at which they shrugged their shoulders, smiled, and (thinking, of course, from his use of the masculine, that he referred to the criminal) replied, 'Well, not at present. The little knife' (their euphemism for the guillotine)' does not work quite so quick.'

But, as it happened, poor Phoebe was not yet dead-only dying and speechless, as the Commissary of Police, who was in waiting at the door of the hotel, informed Mr. Barlow in broken English. The criminal was in custody elsewhere, but pauvre Madame was upstairs, and wished to see him. He was conducted to the same room in which he had seen her a few hours ago, but which was now occupied by certain official persons. One of them, a juge de paix, informed him in English that he had been taking the declaration of Madame, who lay in the inner apartment. A doctor was with her, who would presently summon Monsieur to her bedside.

Is there no hope?' inquired Mr. Barlow, deeply affected.

The magistrate shook his head. She has received half a dozen stabs, each of which, says the doctor, would be enough to kill her. The bleeding has been averted for the moment, but not before she swooned away. Ma foi! what carnage-and what beauty! But monsieur knows her?'

Twenty-four hours ago Mr. Barlow would not, perhaps, have felt complimented at such knowledge being imputed to him; but all that was changed now. To his inward eye the unhappy girl appeared-not a saint, indeed, but a martyr. He bowed his head in grave acquiescence, and asked if it was known why the crime had been committed.

The juge de paix, a bright little old man, who applied himself to his snuff-box every other minute in a manner that suggested the pecking of a bird, here shrugged his shoulders and held his head and hands sideways, as though he were clasping an invisible Punch's bâton. Ah, well, I suppose it was the old story. There was an open desk, and letters strewn about; Madame had been imprudent, and her husband was transported with jealousy.'