"Leave you, my child! no; we have a thousand things to say to each other.
I will not," he added in a whisper, turning to Maltravers, "forestall
your communications."



CHAPTER III.

ALACK, 'tis he. Why, he was met even now
As mad as the vexed sea.--_Lear_.

IN the Rue de la Paix there resided an English lawyer of eminence, with
whom Maltravers had had previous dealings; to this gentleman he now
drove. He acquainted him with the news he had just heard, respecting the
bankruptcy of Mr. Douce; and commissioned him to leave Paris, the first
moment he could obtain a passport, and to proceed to London.

At all events, he would arrive there some hours before Maltravers; and
those hours were something gained. This done, he drove to the nearest
hotel, which chanced to be the Hotel de M-----, where, though he knew it
not, it so happened that Lord Vargrave himself lodged. As his carriage
stopped without, while the porter unclosed the gates, a man, who had been
loitering under the lamps, darted forward, and prying into the
carriage-window, regarded Maltravers earnestly. The latter, pre-occupied
and absorbed, did not notice him; but when the carriage drove into the
courtyard it was followed by the stranger, who was muffled in a worn and
tattered cloak, and whose movements were unheeded amidst the bustle of
the arrival. The porter's wife led the way to a second-floor, just left
vacant, and the waiter began to arrange the fire. Maltravers threw
himself abstractedly upon the sofa, insensible to all around him, when,