"Suppose there should be a further plot?"

"There can't be. Knowing that this one is discovered, they will never

dare.... And even if they tried again in some other way, I would

sooner walk in danger all my life than acknowledge the existence of

such creatures. Will you go at once?"

"As you wish;" and I went out.

"Mr. Foster."

She called me back. Taking my hand with a gesture half-caressing, she

raised her face to mine. Our eyes met, and in hers was a gentle,

trustful appeal, a pathetic and entrancing wistfulness, which sent a

sudden thrill through me. Her clasp of my fingers tightened ever so

little.

"I haven't thanked you in words," she said, "for all you have done for

me, and are doing. But you know I'm grateful, don't you?"

I could feel the tears coming into my eyes.

"It is nothing, absolutely nothing," I muttered, and hurried from the

room.

At first, in the salon, I could not see Yvette, though the electric

light had been turned on, no doubt by herself. Then there was a

movement of one of the window-curtains, and she appeared from behind

it.

"Oh, it is you," she said calmly, with a cold smile. She had

completely recovered her self-possession, so much was evident; and

apparently she was determined to play the game to the end, accepting

defeat with an air of ironical and gay indifference. Yvette was by no

means an ordinary woman. Her face was at once sinister and attractive,

with lines of strength about it; she moved with a certain distinction;

she had brains and various abilities; and I imagined her to have been

capable of some large action, a first-class sin or a really dramatic

self-sacrifice--she would have been ready for either. But of her

origin I am to this day as ignorant as of her ultimate fate.

A current of air told me that a window was open.

"I noticed a suspicious-looking man outside just now," I said. "Is he

one of your confederates? Have you been communicating with him?"

She sat down in an armchair, leaned backwards, and began to hum an

air--la, la, la.

"Answer me. Come!"

"And if I decline?"

"You will do well to behave yourself," I said; and, going to the

window, I closed it, and slipped the catch.

"I hope the gendarmes will be here soon," she murmured amiably; "I am

rather tired of waiting." She affected to stifle a yawn.

"Yvette," I said, "you know as well as I do that you have committed a

serious crime. Tell me all about Deschamps' jealousy of your mistress;

make a full confession, and I will see what can be done for you."

She put her thin lips together.

"No," she replied in a sharp staccato. "I have done what I have done,

and I will answer only the juge d'instruction."




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