At The Villa Rose

"Are we all ready? Have you got Mme. Dauvray's left hand, Helene?"

"Yes, madame," answered the maid.

"And I have her right hand. Now give me yours, and thus we are in

a circle about the table."

Celia, in her mind, could see them sitting about the round table

in the darkness, Mme. Dauvray between the two women, securely held

by them. And she herself could not utter a cry--could not move a

muscle to help her.

Wethermill crept back on noiseless feet to the window, closed the

wooden doors, and slid the bolts into their sockets. Yes, Helene

Vauquier was in the plot. The bolts and the hinges would not have

worked so smoothly but for her. Darkness again filled the recess

instead of the grey twilight. But in a moment a faint breath of

wind played upon Celia's forehead, and she knew that the man had

parted the curtains and slipped into the room. Celia let her head

fall towards her shoulder. She was sick and faint with terror. Her

lover was in this plot--the lover in whom she had felt so much

pride, for whose sake she had taken herself so bitterly to task.

He was the associate of Adele Rossignol, of Helene Vauquier. He

had used her, Celia, as an instrument for his crime. All their

hours together at the Villa des Fleurs--here to-night was their

culmination. The blood buzzed in her ears and hammered in the

veins of her temples. In front of her eyes the darkness whirled,

flecked with fire. She would have fallen, but she could not fall.

Then, in the silence, a tambourine jangled. There was to be a

seance to-night, then, and the seance had begun. In a dreadful

suspense she heard Mme. Dauvray speak.