I've seen you pretend, often; but never real tears like these."
She started up.
"I will see her," she cried passionately; "I must see her-this woman whom he loves. Alexis, you have the address: tell it to me. What is the name of the street near Soho Square? "
"Why should I tell you? Of what advantage will it be to me?"
"Must I pay for this also?"
"Well. No. Perhaps not. This time we will exchange services. I will give you this address if—
"If what? "
"If you will convey for me a letter to Mademoiselle Blondette at the theatre."
"What!" cried Regine, laughing, though the tears were still wet upon her cheeks. "You love Mademoiselle Blondette?"
"It is true," Alexis answered, pressing his dirty hand upon his heart, and turning up his green eyes with an air of spurious enthusiasm and romance, not possible to an Englishman.
"My poor Alexis! There is a chance then that at last you will receive your deserts. Truly, I must cease to punish you. You will hardly need more punishment than you will receive from Mademoiselle Blondette."
"She is beautiful as an angel!"
"She is charming,—with the gas-light strong upon her. Her smile is delightful,—when her lips are fresh painted. My poor Alexis! You are épris with a ghoul. Blondette will eat you up, bones and all, and laugh the while, showing her sharp white teeth. She has no more heart, nor feeling, than a guillotine. Yes, she is pretty: bright red and white laid on thick. But to love her, imbecile! She is like a cheap bon-bon—there is as much poison as sugar about her—the coating is mere plaster of Paris; the almond inside is very bitter. You love her! little fool! love a snake!"
"You hate her because you are jealous of her, Regine," said Alexis, sulkily. "Will you give her the letter?"
"Certainly. Give me the address."
Alexis wrote two lines slowly on a scrap of paper and flung it to Regine.
"Behold the address," he said. Regine read it carefully.
"If you have deceived me! You are capable of it. I do not know the name of the street you have written here."
"Bah! I have not deceived you."
"We shall see. I go there at once. A fiacre will soon take me. I shall meet this Madame Violet." She continued half aloud, "I shall see this woman whom he loves so much, for whom he despises me. I hate her already."
She quitted the room. Alexis went through a course of derisive and defiant gestures. Certainly he was more French than English.
"Take care, Mademoiselle Regine, take care," he said, shaking threateningly a small, black, gristly fist. "You abuse Blondette, the woman whom I adore E You dare to trample on my heart! And, more: this five thousand pounds which Madame Boisfleury claims you presume to forgive! Is it so? It is you who are imbecile. There will be war between you then, about this poor Monsieur Wilford! Take care. What if I reveal to Madame that you have seen this person, what you have said to him? Aha! For me, I am on the side of five thousand pounds. But to succour the poor Père Dominique? Pas si bête! If he escape he will only beat me again. No, to spend in this city! to buy presents for Blondette! Five thousand pounds! How these dogs of English are rich!"
Soon Regine left Stowe Street in a cab, to search for the house of one Mr. Phillimore in the neighbourhood of Soho.
Wilford had repaired to his Covent Garden Hotel. He sat down in the empty coffee-room, resting his throbbing head upon his hands, looking very sad, and worn, and dejected.
"What to do!" he murmured. "What to do! The time runs on. Violet must be written to. Already she must be expecting news of me. She will be growing uneasy, will think I am neglecting her. Heaven knows, I would sooner die than cause her unhappiness! But what to do!"
He strode up and down the room with an abstracted air. He paused suddenly before the glass over the fire-place, struck with his own wild haggard looks. He tried to read the "Times;" but the print seemed to dance before him, it made him quite giddy, he could not keep his eyes fixed on it, and his thoughts were always away, busy with the question, asked again and again, "What was he to do?" He sought amusement looking from the coffee-room window at the thousands passing to and fro, occupied in the market. He conned for the hundredth time the addresses of the faded letters in a sort of iron cage on the mantel-piece, sent to visitors who had long since qnitted the hotel, and who would never return for their correspondence. He turned over the leaves of the Post Office Directory, not knowing what he was doing. Certainly looking for nothing. He stood for five minutes before the dark-coloured mahogany sideboard, staring vacantly at a cruet-stand, still asking himself, "What he should do?"
"Why did they ever come back,—these dreadful Pichots? Silent, gone from the country, never to return—as good as dead—am I then secure? Who will ever know? Will not all then be well? May I not then return to her—to Violet—and forget, and be happy? Why not? What should hinder me?" He waited a long time. There was an expression of deep anguish in his face, as he said at last, "But my honour, my duty, are these to be forgotten wholly? God help me!" he cried fervently. "I have never been so tried before!" and he hid his face.
FUGITIVE SLAVES IN OHIO.
A distinguished French writer once remarked that the position of the coloured race in America included in itself every element of romance. Nor was be far from the truth.
The fortunes of this great human family, its