Thus the chatter ran, and for a time Emilia, glued to the spot, stood and listened. Then a spiritual whisper fell on her senses and set her in motion again. "The suit of clothes you dressed in last night. Get rid of it. Destroy it." She walked swiftly from the street and proceeded in the direction of her room. She did not waver now; suggestions of a frightful nature came to her, but she walked on, as if impelled by a hidden force. She reached the street in which the room was situated. It was quiet and deserted. There was comfort in that. Then the police had not been there. If they had there would have been as many people there as in Gerard Street. With desperate courage she opened the street door with her latch-key, and went up the stairs unobserved. She turned the key in the lock and entered the room. The clothes she had worn were in a corner, where she had left them the previous night. She breathed more freely. All this time she had kept in her hand the copy of the _Evening Moon_ she had purchased, and now, in the solitude of her chamber, she nerved herself to read the particulars of the tragedy in which she was involved. Gerald's brother was dead; that was the end; all hope was gone. She no longer thought of appealing to Dr. Peterssen; she felt instinctively that by so doing she would be digging a pit for herself. She could throw herself on the mercy of M. Bordier--that course was open to her. She could tell him her story, strengthening her statements by most solemn assurances of their truth, and leave it to him to decide. She had but little hope in the result. She knew it was exactly the kind of tale which a guilty woman would relate, and that, without a shadow of proof, few men would accept it. There was no time, however, to determine upon any definite course at present. The suit of clothes she had worn when she visited M. Felix must be destroyed; until that was done her position was one of extreme danger. She folded them carefully, and inclosed them in the copy of the Evening Moon, and with the bundle under her arm proceeded to Forston Street. She went at once to her bedroom, and locked the clothes in her box. Already the plan had suggested itself of throwing the clothes into the river in the dead of night, when she could make sure that she was not being watched. After that she would come to some decision as to her future movements. What transpired on the night she made the attempt is known to the reader, and I now take up the sequence of events of which I may claim to be the originator. CHAPTER XLIV. EMILIA RETRACES THE OLD ROADS. After I had learned all that Emilia had to tell me, I informed her that I would take a day or two to decide upon my plan of action. In the meantime she was to make no movement whatever, but to keep herself and daughter in absolute privacy. She placed herself entirely in my hands, and promised not to deviate by a hair's-breadth from the instructions I gave her.