warn you. To-morrow the officers of justice
will be in that accursed house. To-morrow that woman--not for her worst
crimes, they elude the law, but for her least by which the law hunts
her down--will be a prisoner,--no, you shall not return to warn her as I
warn you" (for Jasper here broke away, and retreated some steps towards
the house); "or, if you do, share her fate. I cast you off."

"What do you mean?" said Jasper, halting, till with slow steps she
regained his side. "Speak more plainly: if poor Madame Caumartin has got
into a scrape, which I don't think likely, what have I to do with it?"

"The woman you call Caumartin fled from Paris to escape its tribunals.
She has been tracked; the French government have claimed her--ho!--you
smile. This does not touch you?"

"Certainly not."

"But there are charges against her from English tradesmen; and if it
be proved that you knew her in her proper name,--the infamous Gabrielle
Desmarets; if it be proved that you have passed off the French billets
de banque that she stole; if you were her accomplice in obtaining goods
under her false name; if you, enriched by her robberies, were aiding and
abetting her as a swindler here,--though you may be safe from the French
law, will you be safe from the English? You may be innocent, Jasper
Losely; if so, fear nothing. You may be guilty: if so, hide, or follow
me!"

Jasper paused. His first impulse was to trust implicitly to Mrs. Crane,
and lose not a moment in profiting by such counsels of concealment or
flight as an intelligence so superior to his own could suggest. But
suddenly remembering that Poole had undertaken to get the bill for
L1,000 by the next day,--that if flight were necessary, there was yet
a chance of flight with booty,--his constitutional hardihood, and the
grasping cupidity by which it was accompanied, made him resolve at least
to hazard the delay of a few hours. And, after all, might not Mrs. Crane
exaggerate? Was not this the counsel of a jealous woman? "Pray," said
he, moving on, and fixing quick keen eyes on her as she walked by his
side, "pray, how did you learn all these particulars?"

"From a detective policeman employed to discover Sophy. In conferring
with him, the name of Jasper Losely as her legal protector was of
course stated; that name was already coupled with the name of the false
Caumartin. Thus, indirectly, the child you would have consigned to that
woman saves you from sharing that woman's ign