Before this she had been a "little noisy," singing snatches of a song, and trying to repeat the words of an ambiguous _jeu d'esprit_ she had heard that evening for the first time.

She was now altogether unconscious of where she was, or in what company--as proved by her occasionally waking up, calling out "Spooney!"--addressing her husband as the _other_ count, and sometimes as "Kate the coper!"

Her own count appeared to be unusually careful of her. He took much pains to keep her quiet; but more in making her comfortable. She had on a long cloth cloak of ample dimensions--a sort of night wrapper. This he adjusted over her shoulders, buttoning it close around her throat that her chest should not be exposed to the fog.

By the time the cab had crawled through Upper Baker Street, and entered the Park Road, Fan had not only become quiet, but was at length sound asleep; her tiny snore alone telling that she lived.

On moved the vehicle through the dun darkness, magnified by the mist to twice its ordinary size, and going slow and silent as a hearse.

"Where?" asked the driver, slewing his body around, and speaking in through the side window.

"South Bank! You needn't go inside the street. Set us down at the end of it, in the Park Road."

"All right," rejoined the Jarvey, though not thinking so. He thought it rather strange, that a gent with a lady in such queer condition should desire to be discharged in that street at such an hour, and especially on such a night!

Still it admitted of an explanation, which his experience enabled him to supply. The lady had stayed out a little too late. The gent wished her to get housed without making a noise; and it would not do for cab wheels to be heard drawing up by "the door."

What mattered it to him, cabby, so long as the fare should be forthcoming, and the thing made "square"? He liked it all the better, as promising a perquisite.

In this he was not disappointed. At the corner designated, the gentleman got out, lifting his close muffled partner in his arms, and holding her upright upon the pavement.

With his spare hand he gave the driver a crown piece, which was more than double his fare.

After such largess, not wishing to appear impertinent, cabby climbed back to his box; readjusted the manifold drab cape around his shoulders; tightened his reins; touched the screw with his whip; and started back towards the Haymarket, in hopes of picking up another intoxicated fare.

"Hold on to my arm, Fan!" said Swinton to his helpless better half as soon as the cabman was out of hearing. "Lean upon me. I'll keep you up. So! Now, come along!"

Fan made no reply. The alcohol overpowered her--now more than ever.

She was too tipsy to talk, even to walk; and her husband had to support her whole weight, almost to drag her along. She was quite unconscious whither. But Swinton knew.

It was not along South Bank; they had passed the entrance of that quiet thoroughfare, and were proceeding up the Park Road!

And why? He also knew why.

Under the Park Road passes the Regent's Canal, spanned by the bridge already spoken of. You would only know you were crossing the canal by observing a break in the shrubbery. This opens westward. On the east side of the road is the park wall rising high overhead, and shadowed by tall trees.

Looking towards Paddington, you see an open list, caused by the canal and its tow-path. The water yawns far below your feet, on both sides draped with evergreens; and foot-passengers along the Park Road are protected from straying over by a parapet scarce breast-high.

Upon this bridge Swinton had arrived. He had stopped and stood close up to the parapet, as if for a rest, his wife still clinging to his arm.

He _was_ resting; but not with the intention to proceed farther. He was recovering strength for an effort so hellish, that, had there been light around them, he and his companion would have appeared as a _tableau vivant_--the spectacle of a murderer about to despatch his victim! And it would have been a tableau true to the life; for such in reality was his design!

There was no light to shine upon its execution; no eye to see him suddenly let go his wife's arm, draw the wrapper round her neck, so that the clasp came behind; and then, turning it inside out, fling the skirt over her head!

There could be no ear to hear that smothered cry, as, abruptly lifted in his arms, she was pitched over the parapet of the bridge! Swinton did not even himself stay to hear the plunge. He only heard it; indistinctly blending with the sound of his own footsteps, as with terrified tread he retreated along the Park Road!

CHAPTER EIGHTY.

ON THE TOW-ROPE.

With difficulty cordelling his barge around the Regent's Park, Bill Bootle, the canal boatman, was making slow speed. This because the fog had thickened unexpectedly; and it was no easy matter to guide his old horse along the tow-path.

He would not have attempted it; but that he was next morning due in the Paddington Basin; where, at an early hour, the owner of the boat would be expecting him.

Bill was only skipper of the craft; the crew consisting of his wife, and a brace of young Bootles, one of them still at the breast. Mrs B, wearing her husband's dreadnought to protect her from the raw air of the night, stood by the tiller, while Bootle himself had charge of the tow-horse.

He had passed through the Park Road Bridge, and was groping his way beyond, when a drift of the fog thicker than common came curling along the canal, compelling him to make stop.

The boat was still under the bridge; and Mrs Bootle, feeling that the motion was suspended, had ceased working the spokes. Just at this moment, both she and her husband heard a shuffling sound upon the bridge above them; which was quick followed by a "swish," as of some bulky object descending through the air!

There was also a voice; but so smothered as to be almost inaudible!

Before either had time to think of it, a mass came splashing down upon the water, between the boat and the horse!

It had struck the tow-rope; and with such force, that the old machiner, tired after a long spell of pulling, was almost dragged backwards into the canal.

And frighted by the sudden jerk, it was as much as Bootle could do to prevent him rushing forward, and going in head foremost.

The difficulty in tranquillising the horse lay in the fact that the tow-rope was still kept taut by some one who appeared to be struggling upon it, and whose smothered cries could be heard coming up from the disturbed surface of the water!

The voice was not so choked, but that Bootle could tell it to be that of a woman!

The boatman's chivalrous instincts were at once aroused; and, dropping the rein, he ran back a bit, and then sprang with a plunge into the canal.

It was so dark he could see nothing; but the half-stifled cries served to guide him; and swimming towards the tow-rope, he discovered the object of his search!

It was a woman struggling in the water, and still upon its surface.

She was prevented from sinking by her cloak, which had swished over on one side of the tow-rope as her body fell upon the other.

Moreover she had caught the rope in her hands, and was holding on to it with the tenacious grasp of one who dreads drowning.

The boatman could not see her face, which appeared to be buried within the folds of a cloak!

He did not stay to look for a face. Enough for him that there was a body in danger of being drowned; and throwing one arm around it, with the other he commenced "swarming" along the tow-rope in the direction of the barge!

Mrs B, who had long since forsaken the tiller, and was now "for'ard,"

helped him and his burden aboard; which, examined by the light of the canal-boat lantern, proved to be a very beautiful lady, dressed in rich silk, with a gold watch in her waistbelt, and a diamond ring sparkling upon her fingers!

Mrs Bootle observed that beside this last, there was another ring of plain appearance, but in her eyes of equal significance. It was the hoop emblematic of Hymen.

These things were only discovered after the saturated cloak had been removed from the shoulders of the half-drowned woman; and who, but for it and the tow-rope, would have been drowned altogether.

"What is this?" asked the lady, gasping for breath, and looking wildly around. "What is it, Dick? Where are you? Where am I? O God! It is water! I'm wet all over. It has nearly suffocated me! Who are you, sir? And you, woman; if you are a woman? Why did you throw me in? Is it the river, or the Serpentine, or where?"

"'Taint no river, mistress," said Mrs Bootle, a little nettled by the doubt thrown upon her womanhood, "nor the Sarpentine neyther. It's the Regent Canal. But who ha' pitched you into it, ye ought best to know that yourself."