signs behind. But you have been so kind as to confess your own identity. You will be well advised to stand aside and let me pass."
Just for a moment it looked as if Beatrice's audacity was going to carry her through. But it was Sartoris who interfered this time. His face had grown black; he had thrown aside all traces of amiability now.
"You are a very clever young lady," he said with a dry sneer. "A most exceedingly and remarkably clever young lady. But you are too proud of your discoveries, you talk too much. You see, these good people are friends of mine."
"I know that," Beatrice retorted. "But one thing I am certain of—had you known what was going to happen, those photographs would never have been left for me to see. You need not have been under the necessity of lying about them, and I should have gone away, never dreaming that I had met the Countess and the General again."
"Do I understand that you drag me into your charge?" Sartoris demanded angrily.
"Certainly I do," Beatrice cried. Her blood was up now; anger had got the better of discretion. She was furious to feel that she had been lured into a den of swindlers, and so all her sagacity and prudence had gone to the winds. "Those people are accomplices of yours; the very lie that you told me proves the fact. And you, the lame man in the hansom cab——"
Beatrice got no further, for a howl of rage from Sartoris prevented more words. The cripple wheeled his chair across the room and barred the door.
"You shall pay for this," he said furiously. "You know too much. That anybody should dare to stand
there before me and say what you have said to me——"
He seemed to be incapable of further speech. The man called Reggie bent over Beatrice and whispered something in her ear. She caught the words mechanically——