"I don't know anything about it, except what Count Ferruci told me," said Lydia obstinately. "And he said that Vrain, as Wrent, killed Clear. But you can easily prove if it's true or not." "How can we prove it?" asked Diana coldly. "By laying a trap for Mark. You know--at least Ercole told me, and I suppose Mrs. Clear told you--that she corresponded with Mark--Wrent, I mean--in the agony column of the _Daily Telegraph_. "By means of a cypher? Yes, I know that, but she hasn't received any answer yet." "Of course not," replied Lydia, with triumph, "because Wrent--that's Mark, you know--is in the asylum, and can't answer her." "This is all nonsense!" broke in Lucian, impatient of this cobweb spinning. "I don't believe a word of Ferruci's story. If Vrain lived in Jersey Street as Wrent, why should Mrs. Clear visit him?" "To get him back to Bayswater." "Nonsense! nonsense! And even admitting as much, why should Mrs. Clear, in the newspapers, correspond in cypher with a man whom she not only knows is in an asylum as her husband, but who can be seen by her at any time?" "I quite agree with you, Lucian," cried Diana emphatically. "Count Ferruci told a pack of falsehoods to Mrs. Vrain! The thing is utterly absurd!" "Oh, I guess I'm not so easily made a fool of as all that!" cried Lydia, firing up. "If you don't believe me, lay the trap I told you of. Let Mark go free out of the asylum; get Mrs. Clear, with her cypher and newspapers, to ask him to meet her in the house where Clear was murdered, and then you'll see if Mark won't turn up in his character of Wrent." "He will not!" cried Diana vehemently. "He will not!" "Mark, when he left me," went on the angry Lydia, "had plenty of hair, and was clean shaven. Now--as Ferruci told me, for I haven't seen him--he is bald, and wears a skull-cap of black velvet, and a white beard. After Ercole told me about Jersey Street I went there to ask that fat woman about Mark; she said he had gone away two days after Christmas, and described him as an old man with a skull-cap and a white beard." "Oh!" cried Lucian, for he recollected that Rhoda gave the same description. "Ah! you know I speak the truth!" said Lydia, rising, "but I've had enough of all this. I've lost my money, and I don't suppose I'll go back to Mark. I've been treated badly all round, and I don't know what poppa will say. But I'm going out of London to meet him." "You said you did not know where your father was!" cried Diana scornfully. "I don't tell you everything, Diana," retorted Lydia, looking very wicked, "but, if you must know, poppa went over to Paris last week, and I'm going over there to meet him. He'll raise Cain for the way I've been treated." "Well," said Lucian, as she prepared to take her leave, "I hope you'll get away." "Do you intend to stop me, Mr. Denzil?" flashed out Mrs. Vrain, furiously. "Not I; but I'll give you a hint--the railway stations will be watched by the police."