the metropolis of France. If Edna shuddered at this, what would Mrs.
Cliff do if she knew it?

As for the man with the white cap, who had walked slowly away about his
business that morning when he grew tired of following the gendarmes, he
was in a terrible state of mind. He silently raged and stormed and
gnashed his teeth, and swore under his breath most awfully and
continuously. Never had he known such cursed luck. One thousand dollars
had been within two feet of his hand! He knew that the lady had that sum
in her pocket-book. He was sure she spoke truthfully. Her very
denunciation of him was a proof that she had not meant to deceive him.
She hesitated a moment, but she would have given him the money. In a few
seconds more he would have made her take the letter and give him the
price she promised. But in those few seconds that Gehenna-born baboon
had rushed in and spoiled everything. He was not enraged against the
lady, but he was enraged against himself because he had not snatched the
wallet before he ran, and he was infuriated to a degree which resembled
intoxication when he thought of Cheditafa and what he had done. The more
he thought, the more convinced he became that the lady had not brought
the negro with her to spy on him. If she had intended to break her word,
she would have brought a gendarme, not that ape.

No, the beastly blackamoor had done the business on his own account. He
had sneaked after the lady, and when he saw the gendarmes coming, he had
thought it a good chance to pay off old scores.

"Pay off!" growled Banker, in a tone which made a shop-girl, who was
walking in front of him carrying a band-box, jump so violently that she
dropped the box. "Pay off! I'll pay him!" And for a quarter of a mile he
vowed that the present purpose of his life was the annihilation, the
bloody annihilation, of that vile dog, whom he had trampled into the dirt
of the Pacific coast, and who now, decked in fine clothes, had arisen in
Paris to balk him of his fortune.

It cut Banker very deeply when he thought how neat and simple had been
the plan which had almost succeeded. He had had a notion, when he went
away to prepare the letter for the captain's wife, that he would write in
it a brief message which would mean nothing, but would make it necessary
for her to see him again and to pay him again. But he had abandoned this.
He might counterfeit an address, but it was wiser not to try his hand
upon a letter. The more h