“Then you must go and make it, my girl,” he replies coarsely. “You’ll have no difficulty in doing that, and I’ve no money to give you. You know perfectly well that I’ve nigh ruined myself with lending all the money that I did to that Lord Westray, and now he’s dead I can’t get it back. Curse him! I wish I’d never seen him, or had anything to do with that Mrs. de Lara and her daughter. They’ve beat us fair and square, Victoire, even though the daughter be dead. Fair and square.” “I hate them both,” she bursts out with unreasoning fury. “They are the cause of my misery now. Oh, Trackem! don’t forsake me. I might have had a comfortable, respectable home with Charles, but I threw it up to be with you. What did I do it for but because I loved you? I’m a bad one, no doubt; but at least I loved you, and do love you still. Don’t forsake me! I’ll stop here and put the trackers off the scent, and do all I know how to help you, only promise me you’ll let me know where you are by-and-by, and let me join you again.” A brilliant thought strikes Mr. Trackem. He has not the slightest intention of doing as she asks, but it will be just as well, he thinks, to lead her to believe that he will. And meantime she may be useful in assisting his escape. “Well, Victoire,” he says in a more conciliatory voice, “you’re a good girl and a faithful one. Look here, here’s five pounds, and I’ll send you more soon. Stay here as long as you can, and keep the bloodhounds at bay. If the staff get uneasy, you can hoodwink them. When you change your address put it in the _Times_. And now, my girl, give us a kiss. I must be off. Every moment makes it more risky.” He has finished burning his compromising papers, has taken up his hat, stick, and gloves, thrown his coat over one arm, and picked up the business bag. He is quite ready to go. She throws her arms round his neck. Fallen, degraded, wicked as is Victoire Hester, yet she loves this vile, scheming, and contemptible wretch, for whose sake she has steeped her soul in the inky dye of sin, and turned from the path of honour and of truth. “There now, there now, that’s enough, old girl,” he says hastily, and as she unclasps her hands from about his neck, he steps quickly towards the door and opens it. “Remember, Victoire, you baulk the trackers,” he says significantly, and then he passes out from her presence, and is gone.