fireplace where the fire was ready for lighting, and pried into the
vases on the mantel. Also they shook the silk and lace window curtains,
and moved the pictures on the walls. When all this had been done in
vain, the pair confessed with shrugs of the shoulders that they were at
a loss.

During the search, which had been conducted in silence, I had a curious
sensation, caused by my intense sympathy with Maxine's suffering. I felt
as if my heart were the pendulum of a clock which had been jarred until
it was uncertain whether to go on or stop. Once, when the gendarmes were
peering under the sofa, or behind the sofa cushions, a grey shadow round
Maxine's eyes made her beautiful face look like a death-mask in the
white electric light, which did not fail now, or spare her any cruelty
of revelation. She was smiling contemptuously still--always the same
smile--but her forehead appeared to have been sprinkled with diamond
dust.

I saw that dewy sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it
too. But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point.
The keen-eyed Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled
subordinates, but crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it
fixedly. Then, grasping the back with his capable-looking hand, instead
of beginning at once a quest which his gendarmes had abandoned, he
searched the face of the tortured woman.

Unflinching in courage, she seemed not to see him. But it was as if she
had suddenly ceased to breathe. Her bosom no longer rose and fell. The
only movement was the visible knocking of her heart. I felt that, in
another moment, if he found what she had hidden, her heart would knock
no longer, and she would die. For a second I wildly counted the chances