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 had been going on, and now, our wedding day being fixed a week ahead, we all set out sightseeing and having a good time generally. I now engaged the coachman I had met before as my valet, and a very good, all-around, handy man he proved to be. Of course I was anxious to hear that the first coup on the bank had succeeded, but I was tolerably confident it was all right. Had it fallen through it would have proved awkward for me. In that event the Paris climate would have been too warm for me, and I would have had to find a score of excuses to hasten our marriage and leave for the Western World as speedily as possible. I had a four-in-hand coach, and we drove everywhere in and around Paris, once to Versailles and on to Fontainebleau, where we dined, a merry party. What a strange world is this, what a stage it is, ever crowded with tragedies, too! How absolutely in the dark we are as to the motives and actions of men. There I was, the centre of merry pleasure parties in gay Paris. A young dude, driving my four-in-hand, and yet a criminal, waiting in hourly expectation a telegram announcing success in a great plot which, when it exploded, was destined to startle the business world, and to hurl me from the summit of happiness, where I was reveling, apparently free from care, to the misery of a dungeon, banishing the happy smiles from my face and the joyous ring from my voice, leaving in place of the smiles the sombre gloom of the prison, and in place of the snatches of song and eager accents I was wont to speak with, the hushed voice subdued to prison tones.