"And you and Don Juan have parted company for a long spell?" "We have." "Very well, then, why not join us? I may have more reasons than one for taking an interest in you. You can't stay in New Orleans, for by eight o'clock this morning your escape will be discovered. I've a fancy that you'd make a smart mate on board yonder vessel. Will you come?" "I will," answered Paul, grasping his new friend by the hand. "You at least trust me--you do not fear to take me on board your vessel, though the hand of suspicion is upon me, and men have called me thief. Providence seems to have raised you up, as if by a miracle, to preserve me from disgrace, despair and death. I am yours for good or evil; in weal or woe I will serve you faithfully." CHAPTER XVII. REVELATIONS OF GUILT. Don Juan Moraquitos was one of the first to hear of the escape of Paul Lisimon. The reader must remember that the Spaniard knew nothing of the infamous plot devised by Silas Craig at the instigation of Augustus Horton. He believed his protege to be guilty of the crime imputed to him. He had a secret reason for rejoicing in the disgrace of the young Mexican, and he had a still stronger motive in seeking the destruction of Paul, since he had begun to suspect the attachment between Lisimon and Camillia. He hurried to his daughter's apartments, in order to inform her of Paul's escape from prison. "Now, Camillia, what think you of this haughty youth who so proudly declared his innocence?" said Don Juan, after relating the account he had just heard of Lisimon's escape. "I think as I have ever thought," answered Camillia. "That he is innocent?" "Yes!" replied the Spanish girl. "Strange, then, that he should have fled," said Don Juan; "the innocent man generally awaits to meet the issue of his trial; it is only the guilty wretch who flies to hide himself from the avenging power of the law he has outraged." Pauline Corsi had been present during this brief dialogue, but she had remained silent, with her fingers busy with the rainbow silks of her embroidery, and her eyes bent over her work. She raised them, however, as the Spaniard uttered those words and looked him full in the face. "The guilty do not always fly, Don Juan Moraquitos," she said quietly. The Spaniard started and looked at Mademoiselle Corsi with a rapid, but furtive glance. "They sometimes remain for years upon the scene of their guilt. They defy the laws which they have outraged, and triumph in their undiscovered and successful villainy." Don Juan laughed mockingly, but a close observer might have detected an uneasy quiver of his mustachio-shaded lip. "Mademoiselle Corsi appears to speak from experience," he said. "She has perhaps known such people?" "I have known such people," answered the Frenchwoman in the same quiet tone in which she had first addressed Don Juan. "They could scarcely be desirable acquaintances for the instructress of--"