“I hate going back there,” she told herself, as the Calais express whirled her through Abbeville, Amiens, Creil.  “Hate it, dread it, more than I can say.”

And this repugnance might be interpreted into some glimmering remnant of good feeling were it not due to vague fears of impending evil rather than to shame and remorse.

She was landed at an early hour at the hotel she resolved to patronise:  a quiet, old-fashioned house in the best part of the Rue de Rivoli, overlooking the gardens of the Tuileries.

She was shown to a room, and proceeded at once to correct the ravages of the night journey.  A handsome woman still, but vain, like all her sex, and anxious to look her best on every occasion.

Hastily swallowing a cup of coffee, as soon as her toilette was completed she issued forth and took the first cab she could find.

“To the Porte St. Martin,” she said; “lose no time.”

Arrived there, she alighted, dismissed the cab, and proceeded on foot to the Faubourg St. Martin, to the house we have visited already, and in which our friend Hyde was still a prisoner.

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.