il design, Mr. Waters?" said the woman, with
an accent of reproach. "I thought you might, and yet nothing can be
further from the truth. My sole object is to obtain the reward, and
escape from this life of misery and degradation to my own country, and,
if possible, begin the world respectably again. Why should you doubt
me?"

"How came you acquainted with this robber's haunts?"

"The explanation is easy, but this is not the time for it. Stay--can't
you get assistance?"

"Easily--in less than ten minutes; and, if you are here when I return,
and your information proves correct, I will ask pardon for my
suspicions."

"Be it so," she said, joyfully; "and be quick, for this weather is
terrible."

Ten minutes had not passed when I returned with half-a-dozen officers,
and found Madame Jaubert still at her post. We followed her up the
court, caught Martin sure enough asleep upon a wretched pallet of straw
in one of the alley hovels, and walked him off, terribly scared and
surprised, to the nearest station-house, where he passed the remainder
of the night. The next day Martin proved an _alibi_ of the distinctest,
most undeniable kind. He had been an inmate of Clerkenwell prison for
the last three months, with the exception of just six days previous to
our capture of him; and he was, of course, at once discharged. The
reward was payable only upon conviction of the offender, and the
disappointment of poor Madame Jaubert was extreme. She wept bitterly at
the thought of being compelled to continue her present disreputable mode
of life, when a thousand francs--a sum she believed Martin's capture
would have assured her--besides sufficient for her traveling expenses
and decent outfit, would, she said, purchase a partnership in a small
but respectable millinery shop in Paris. "Well," I remarked to her,
"there is no reason for despair. You have not only proved your sincerity
and good faith, but that you possess a knowledge--how acquired you best
know--of the haunts and hiding-places of burglars. The reward, as you
may have seen by the new placards, has been doubled; and I have a strong
opinion, from something that has reached me this morning, that if you
could light upon one Armstrong, _alias_ Rowden, it would be as certainly
yours as if already in your pocket."

"Armstrong--Rowden!" repeated the woman, with anxious simplicity; "I
never heard either of these names. What sort of a person is he?"

I described him minutely; but Mad