I heard enough," wrote Mr. Hobson, "to satisfy me that the devil is
unchained and means mischief. I never thought to see R. G. again. We
must watch him now closely, and know all his movements. If he goes to
Paris, as I heard him threaten, he will give himself into our hands. I
shall follow, in spite of the risks I run. One word of warning to the
Prefecture will put the police on his track. Arrest, removal to Mazas,
Cayenne, or by the guillotine--what matter which?--will be his
inevitable fate. The French law is implacable. His _dossier_ (criminal
biography) is in the hands of the authorities, and will be easily
produced. There must be numbers of people still living in Paris who
could identify him at once, in spite of his beard and bronzed face. I
can, if need be, although I would rather not make myself too prominent
just now. Be tranquil; he will not be able to injure us. It is his own
doom that he is preparing."

CHAPTER IX.

IN PARIS.

Years had passed since Hyde--he was Rupert Gascoigne then--had last
been in Paris. The memory of that last sojourn and the horrors of it
still clung to him--his arrest, unjust trial, escape. His bold leap
into the swift Seine, his rescue by a passing river steamer, on which,
thanks to a plausible tale, in which he explained away the slight
flesh-wound he had received from the gendarme's pistol, he found
employment as a stoker, and so got to Rouen, thence to Havre and the
sea.

Willingly he would never have returned to the place where he had so
nearly fallen a victim. But he was impelled by a stern sense of duty;
he came now as an avenging spirit to unmask and punish those who had
plotted against him and his friend--unscrupulous miscreants who were a
curse to the world.

He took up his quarters in a large new hotel upon the Boulevards.

Paris had changed greatly in these years. The Second Empire, with its
swarm of hastily-enriched adventurers, had already done much to
beautify and improve the city. Life was more than ever gay in this the
chief home of pleasure-seekers. Luxury of the showiest kind everywhere
in the ascendant; smart equipages and gaily-dressed crowds, the
shop-fronts glittering with artistic treasures, everyone outwardly
happy, and leading a careless, joyous existence.

Englishmen, officers especially, were just now welcome guests in
Paris. Mr. Hyde, of the Royal Picts, as he entered himself upon the
hotel register, with his soldierly air, his Crimean bear