a minute of your leaving comes down a telegraphic message to us to hold over all our warrants against him, leave off watching him even, and come

back to town."

"He is still very rich, perhaps, and very powerful, and has influential friends."

"There's no man in England," retorted the vexed Inspector, "powerful enough to step between a criminal and his prosecutors when informations have once been sworn, and a warrant has once been granted. We don't do things in a corner or in the dark here, monsieur. 'Fair and above board' is our motto. I was to have taken him here, and I ought to have taken him here, and it's deuced provoking."

The true Englishman spoke in Inspector Millament. All detective policeman as he was, and accustomed to track his prey very much in the manner of a sleuth hound, he would have been shocked to learn that any of his prisoners-his "customers," as he called them—had been arrested without all due legal formalities being observed; or that, after capture, they had been deprived of any legal means of defence. And, moreover, Inspector Millament was mortal. Though he railed at the "gentlemen of the press," he was not insensible to the flattering notices frequently bestowed on his sagacity and acumen by the newspaper reporters, and ranked in the highest class of literary composition those wondrouslyspun paragraphs in which the "skilful recapture of an escaped convict," or the "extraordinary detection of a bank-robbery," or the "clever discovery of a fugitive bankrupt," was ascribed to the pluck and energy of Sergeant South, or the zeal tempered with discretion of Mr.-they always gave him the Mister-Mr. Inspector Millament.

The baffled Inspector was preparing to take leave of Simon, when there came pressing through the throng Sergeant South, beckoning hastily to his superior. The Inspector closed the window; Simon drew the blind down, and they were once more in the gloom again.

But not for long. Florence heard the clanking of a chain, the lumbering of the carriage-pole, the shouts and curses of drivers and postboys who were being made to move their vehicles on one side by the police. She strained her ears to catch some words; but the din of minstrels and niggers with their music, and the roaring of the stick-throwing, and the brawlers and the chaffers and the roysterers, made up only one harsh humming noise, and she could distinguish nothing.

Let us pass for the moment from the interior of that silken prison to the outside. It has always been to me a marvel of marvels how ever people manage to get a carriage off the Hill on a great race-day without smashing five hundred coach-panels, and crushing five thousand toes. It is done somehow. There are always people who want to leave early, and they manage to leave and get clear of the labyrinth of wheels, and drive away through the grinning, scampering crowd; but the operation is nevertheless astounding. So, in youth, were these four puzzling and bewildering things to me: first, to know how a ship got into a dock, and how she

got out of dock, without being stove-in at some stage or another; next, to know how ever the great Duke of Wellington, in extreme old age, managed to get on his horse, and, finally, how he contrived to get off it.

The four posters brought down by Mrs. Armytage were in due time, that is to say, after a good long lapse of it, harnessed to the carriage. The postboy, who was tipsy, had disappeared; so had his comrade, not much superior to him, it must be admitted, in sobriety. Their places were supplied by two new postillions of great gravity of countenance, and who were thoroughly impervious to the witticisms of the road. As the carriage, with the blinds still down, was painfully manoeuvered out of the ruck of its surroundings,' at least half-a-dozen mounted policemen showed themselves exceedingly active in directing its movements and clearing the way; conspicuous among them was the Superintendent who had spoken to Millament and his companions on the Course.

The throng had of course their jest at the fact of the blinds of the carriage being so closely drawn down, and various opinions were hazarded as to the occupants' having taken a little more than was good for them. Derisive cries were heard of "Didn't it agree with you?" "Never mind if your head aches!" "Come out and have some fresh air!" Then sodawater corks and farthing dolls were playfully thrown against the windows; then the postboys were recommended to "go gently over the stones;" then it was surmised that there was a lady inside with "a wicked old marquis," who was adjured to "come out and show hisself." But there is an end to every thing, even to getting off the Hill at Epsom. Away the carriage and its occupants went at last. Away from the booths and the gipsy-tents, the hucksters' stalls, the temporary stables. Away from the mad medley of lords and ladies, gamblers, roués, thieves, fools, grooms, hostlers, gipsies, beggars, policemen, mountebanks, and vagrant children.

There was an open barouche to which the horses were being put, and which was full of the Daughters of Folly, all blazing in paint and jewelry, and rich silks and laces. The poor creatures within were half uproarious and half fractious with champagne. A knot of dissipated young men were lounging over this carriage, perched on wheels and box and rumble, and bandying about loose talk and silver tankards. Among them, I am sorry to say, were Captain Goldthorpe, already half consoled for his losses, and Viscount Groomporter, who was growing more and more flushed as to his countenance, and less and less steady as to his legs.

The carriage came thudding by on the soft turf, and the young noble

man seeing it, cried,

"Why, Goldie, isn't that your friend Mrs. A.'s trap?"

The dragoon looked, and saw that it was.

"What's she going away so early for?"

"Because she chooses, I suppose, Groomporter."

"Yes,"-I am afraid his lordship pronounced the affirmative, "yesh;" "but what has she got the blinds down for?”

She may be tired; she may have some one with her that she doesn't care about being seen with."

"Goldie," pursued Viscount Groomporter, with much tipsy gravity, "my opinion is, that the little widow's very spoons upon you."

The Captain, remembering the fifty-pound note, which, by the way, had been nearly doubled since he received it by a lucky draw in a sweepstakes on one of the minor races, blushed, and was silent.

The curtained carriage drove away, and all association between Florence Armytage and the British aristocracy faded away for ever. She was thoroughly worn out, and fell into a sleep. Simon Lefranc was not at all surprised to see her slumber. Had he not, in his time, watched murderers sleeping in the condemned cell the very night before their execution, galley-slaves reposing on their hard deal boards? "Why shouldn't she sleep, if she's tired, and tired enough I dare say she is?" quoth Simon Lefranc to himself.

The carriage was driven along the most sequestered roads that the postillions could hit upon, in order to avoid as much as possible the noise and confusion inseparable, as it would seem, from coming home after a great race; yet with the minutest precautions, and following bye-lane after bye-lane, they could not help coming from time to time upon some carriage filled with choice spirits, who roared and laughed and "chaffed," and gave many other unmistakable signs of the wine being in and the wit being out. Comparatively early as they had started, they took so many détours that it was ten o'clock at night before they came to Clapham Common.

When Florence Armytage woke for the first time, which was about an hour's rest, she found that the carriage had halted, and that the door was half open, with a man—not Simon, he had not yet stirred from her side-standing thereat. A cup of tea was handed to her, which she drank greedily as she would have drunk any thing, from prussic acid to Curacoa. It must have been very good tea, and very strong tea; for she went to sleep again five minutes after she had emptied the cup, and did not wake for full three hours afterwards.

Then she woke, thoroughly, and found to her amazement that Simon Lefranc was no longer with her, and that her wrist was manacled to that of a woman. A little swinging lamp had been lit; and she could see that she had yet another travelling companion, a woman who sat opposite to her.

She started, and would have screamed. The looks of these two women terrified her ten thousand times more than the policeman had done. Her terror was increased when the woman to whom she was handcuffed bade her to "give them none of her nonsense, for if she did she should be gagged." She bowed her head, and spake no more till London was reached, and her new life commenced.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

WHAT PEOPLE SAID IN THE CITY.

In the first place, people said in the City, and knew it for a fact, that the Bank of England had raised its rate of discount. The tightening of that financial screw of course had immediately produced a corresponding tightness in the money-market. Money was no longer to be had on easy terms "in the street;"-I wish that I knew when it was to be had on easy terms in the houses;-holders were firm, and wouldn't look even at the best of paper. Merchants reputed wealthy came with gloomy countenances out of the parlours of the great discount houses in Lombard and Throgmorton Streets, their still unnegotiated securities in their pockets. Things, to be brief, did not look at all well in the City.

Things looked up the next day a little; then they looked straightforward; then sideways; then down again, and worse than ever. There could not be a panic, there could not be a crash, people said, because, you see, there had never been so much money in the country, or so many visitors in London. Trade was flourishing; gold was coming in from California; mechanics and labourers were in full work; many of the great houses which had begun to falter and tremble a little, gradually recovered themselves. The Bank screw was relaxed; the merchants reputed wealthy went into Lombard-Street parlours with hopeful, and came out with joyful, countenances; the Stock Exchange resumed its wonted joviality; there were no shadows but one-a great black Shadow it was—where money-mongers most do congregate. Peace and prosperity in the world, commercial and financial, seemed to be returning; and yet, things did not look at all well in the City.

Things had their worst aspect, the great Shadow had its blackest hue and hung like an imminent pall, in and over a place called Beryl Court. People—that is, the people who were supposed to know a thing or twotalked all day long about Beryl Court, and about Mammon, the proprietor and potentate thereof. And, while they talked, it was curious to mark that they did not seem to know on what particular peg to hang their conversation. They fastened, of course, as a preliminary peg, upon Sir Jasper Goldthorpe: but the baronet was convalescent; he had been to the Derby; he was at business the next day, and, in the evening, was to give a grand dinner-party to certain illustrious foreigners then sojourning in the British metropolis. The banquet was to be followed by a grand ball. It was during the day of which this was to be the triumphant conclusion that people in the City talked most about Sir Jasper Goldthorpe.

Who were those people? I cannot with certainty determine, any more than I can fix with exactitude upon him who first states authoritatively that Consols shall be ninety-seven and an eighth; that French Three-per-cents shall be sixty-five and a quarter. Somebody must say so

in the first instance, of course, in deference, perhaps, to somebody else. Somebody else agrees with him; a third assentient adds his voice, and the quotation of the Funds is stricken.

But it may have been in Cornhill or in Capel Court, in Lombard or Old Broad Street, that a White Waistcoat (corpulent) brushes against a Blue Frock-coat (sparely built). To them enter a Drab Felt Hat; and a Brown Silk Umbrella with an ivory handle makes up a fourth.

Says White Waistcoat, "I hear for a certainty that it's all over with him."

"You don't say so," ejaculates Blue Frock-coat. "It's true I did hear some very queer rumours at the club this morning."

"He can't last twenty-four hours. He must go; I know it for a fact," Brown Silk Umbrella adds, giving himself a thwack on the pavement.

"That's bad," joins in Drab Hat; "and, to tell the truth, I've heard a good deal about it myself since yesterday afternoon. They say it's been a long time coming. He was always a close customer, and kept things pretty snugly to himself; but the truth will ooze out somehow."

"Ah," remarks White Waistcoat, "he'd better have taken partners." "He never would, though," Drab Hat continues, shaking a shrewd head inside it. "They might have known a great deal too much about the affairs of the House to be quite convenient."

"How much will he go for?"

"A couple of millions at least."

66 Say a million and a half."

"I'll bet it's over two, and that there won't be half-a-crown in the pound assets. There never is in these great paper-crashes. Money will make money of itself, just by turning itself over; but when paper goes to the bad, it doesn't leave enough residue to light a rushlight with."

"What's the secret? what has he been doing? He's been in no great speculations in our market lately?"

"You don't know how many hundred he's been at the bottom of, and behind the scenes of. He was always such an old Slyboots. They say he bolstered up the Duffbury Bank for years."

"Ah! I've heard that. He had something to do, too, with Jubson's patents for raising wrecks with spung-glass cables."

"That big mill that was burnt down at Rochdale in May, and wasn't insured, was his property, so I've heard."

"Hadn't he something to do with the Inland Heliogabalus Docks in Paris?"

"Don't know; but I'm sure he had the concession of the Montevidean Railway. I saw it in Galignani. You know, the one that was to join the General South and Central American Trunk Line;-tunnel under Chimborazo, and run a branch to Tehucantepec."

"Ah! that was a nice little spec; to say nothing of the Ulululu copper-mines."

"And the Pitcairn's Island Packet-service."