d you Marie Duquesne just now; but surely your name is
Jaubert--is it not?"

"Do not trouble yourself about my name," she replied; "that is my
affair, not yours."

"Because if you _are_ the Marie Duquesne who once kept a shop in
Cranbourne-alley, and lost a child called Marie-Louise, I could tell you
something."

A wild light broke from her dark eyes, and a suppressed scream from her
lips. "I am that Marie Duquesne!" she said, in a voice tremulous with
emotion.

"Then I have to inform you that the child so long supposed to be lost I
discovered nearly three weeks ago."

The woman fairly leapt toward me, clasped me fiercely by the arms, and
peering in my face with eyes on fire with insane excitement, hissed out,
"You lie--you lie, you dog! You are striving to deceive me! She is in
heaven: the angels told me so long since."

I do not know, by the way, whether the falsehood I was endeavoring to
palm off upon the woman was strictly justifiable or not; but I am fain
to believe that there are few moralists that would not, under the
circumstances, have acted pretty much as I did.

"If your child was lost when going on an errand to Coventry-street, and
her name is Marie-Louise Duquesne, I tell you she is found. How should I
otherwise have become acquainted with these particulars?"

"True--true," she muttered: "how else should he know? Where is she?"
added the woman, in tones of agonized entreaty, as she sank down and
clasped my knees. "Tell me --tell me, as you hope for life or mercy,
where I may find my child?"

"Release me, give me a chance of escape, and to-morrow your child shall
be in your arms. Refuse, and the secret dies with me."

She sprang quickly to her feet, unclasped the handcuffs, snatched a
knife from the table, and cut the cords which bound me with eager haste.
"Another draught of wine," she said, still in the same hurried, almost
insane manner. "You have work to do! Now, while I secure the door, do
you rub and chafe your stiffened joints." The door was soon fastened,
and then she assisted in restoring the circulation to my partially
benumbed limbs. This was at last accomplished, and Marie Duquesne drew
me toward a window, which she softly opened. "It is useless," she
whispered, "to attempt a struggle with the men below. You must descend
by this," and she placed her hand upon a lead water-pipe, which reached
from the roof to within a few feet of the ground.

"And you," I said; "how are you to escape