estioned the man, but could get nothing out of him more than
that you had departed.

"'At last we gave it up, went to the hotel to get some sleep, which we
needed badly, and the next day went to Dublin, heard about the finding
of your neck-wrapper at the Cathedral Hotel, and knocked about Ireland
for some time. During this time we arrested several persons, but soon
discovered none of them was the right party, and we never obtained a
genuine trace until you were discovered later in Edinburgh.'"

[Illustration: MARKET CROSS, EDINBURGH.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE FLOWERS IN THE PRIMROSE WAY ARE SWEET.

As narrated in an earlier chapter, I left England two days before the
first lot of forged bills were sent in. I left serene and confident of
the future. My departure was a happy event in a double sense. All my
negotiations had been carried on at a considerable expense of nerve, and
in leaving I left everything in such trim that success seemed certain,
with all chance of danger eliminated from the venture. I felt that the
trying toil was now all over, with nothing for me to do but to reap the
harvest, and that without effort or care on my part.

So, when the late November sun looked down on me--I crossed by daylight
this time--standing on the deck of that same wretched Channel steamer,
it looked on a happy man. I did not know then that success in wrongdoing
was ever a failure. The anxious toil of the London and Continental
negotiations was a thing of the past. Was I not young; wealth was or
soon would be mine; was I not in perfect health, body sound and
digestion good, and, above all, was not the woman I loved awaiting me in
Paris, to give herself to me, in all her youth and beauty, and then
somewhere across the Western waters would I not find in some tropic seas
a paradise, which gold would make mine, where I could bear my bride, and
there, turning over a new leaf, live and die with the respect of all
good men mine?

Here was a stately structure I was going to erect, but how rotten the
foundation! I, in my egotism, fancied, in my case, at least, the eternal
course of things would be stayed, and that justice would grant me a
clean bill of health. She did give me that, but it was long years after,
and only when she had had from me her pound of flesh to the very last
ounce.

I joined my sweetheart and her family at the Hotel St. James, Rue
Saint-Honore. She was an English lady, and for a whole year our
courtship ha