"I jest to reassure you. If we act with promptitude there will be no danger; not in the least. I have thrown her off the scent for the present; I have told her that the noise, the struggle, the cry, and the exclamation she heard were nothing but this—that you were suffering from an attack of hysterics, and that I was trying to control and soothe you. I told her that I knew nothing whatever of the fate of her gorilla; and I did not spare the most solemn oaths to assure her of the truth of my statement."
"Good! but was she assured?"
"Not fully. She is confused, bewildered, perplexed, thrown out of her reckoning and off the track; and before she has time to recover herself, collect her faculties, and get upon the scent again, we must act. We must draw the net around her. We must place her in a position in which her character as a witness against you would he totally vitiated. To do this we must hasten the denouement of the plot."
"That plot which will rid me of my rival and make me—me—Lady Vincent!" exclaimed the siren, her eyes sparkling with anticipated triumph.
"Yes, my angel, yes! And I would it were to-morrow!"
"Ah, but, in the meanwhile, if I should be found out and guillotined!" she cried, with a shudder.
"Hanged, my angel, hanged; not guillotined! I told you we do not guillotine people in England."
"Ah—h—h!" shrieked the guilty woman, covering her face with her hands.
"But I tell you there is no danger, my love; none at all, if we do but act promptly and firmly. The time is ripe. The plot is ripe. She herself walks into the trap, by insisting on staying at home this evening, instead of accompanying us to the theater. I have sent the carriage for Mrs. MacDonald. She will come to luncheon with us, and afterwards go with us to the play. My lady will remain at home, by her own request."
"Does Frisbie know the part he is to play?"