ed pale.

"No! I will not suspect. I will not dog her like a bloodhound," cried
he.

"I will!" said Pomander.

"You! By what right?"

"The right of curiosity. I will know whether it is you who are imposed
on, or whether you are right, and all the world is deceived in this
woman."

He ran out; but, for all his speed, when he got into the street there
was the jealous lover at his elbow. They darted with all speed into the
Strand; got a coach. Sir Charles, on the box, gave Jehu a guinea, and
took the reins--and by a Niagara of whipcord they attained Lambeth; and
at length, to his delight, Pomander saw another coach before him with a
gold-laced black slave behind it. The coach stopped; and the slave came
to the door. The shop in question was a few hundred yards distant. The
adroit Sir Charles not only stopped but turned his coach, and let the
horses crawl back toward London; he also flogged the side panels to
draw the attention of Mr. Vane. That gentleman looked through the little
circular window at the back of the vehicle, and saw a lady paying the
coachman. There was no mistaking her figure. This lady, then, followed
at a distance by her slave, walked on toward Hercules Buildings; and it
was his miserable fate to see her look uneasily round, and at last glide
in at a side door, close to the silk-mercer's shop.

The carriage stopped. Sir Charles came himself to the door.

"Now, Vane," said he, "before I consent to go any further in this
business, you must promise me to be cool and reasonable. I abhor
absurdity; and there must be no swords drawn for this little hypocrite."

"I submit to no dictation," said Vane, white as a sheet.

"You have benefited so far by my knowledge," said the other politely;
"let me, who am self-possessed, claim some influence with you."

"Forgive me!" said poor Vane. "My ang--my sorrow that such an angel
should be a monster of deceit." He could say no more.

They walked to the shop.

"How she peeped, this way and that," said Pomander, "sly little Woffy!

"No! on second thoughts," said he, "it is the other street we must
reconnoiter; and, if we don't see her there, we will enter the shop,
and by dint of this purse we shall soon untie the knot of the Woffington
riddle."

Vane leaned heavily on his tormentor.

"I am faint," said he.

"Lean on me, my dear friend," said Sir Charles. "Your weakness will
leave you in the next street."

In the next street they discovered--nothing. In