incident of the previous night.

"You do not answer," he said. "I will ask you another question: have
you attempted to open that drawer prior to this evening?"

Mlle. Dorian looked up rapidly, and her cheeks, which had been pale,
now flushed rosily.

"I try twice before," she confessed, "and cannot open it."

"Ah! And--has _someone else_ tried also?"

Instantly her colour fled again, and she stared at him wide-eyed,
fearful.

"Someone else?" she whispered.

"Yes--someone else. A man ... wearing a sort of cowl----"

"Oh?" she cried and threw out her hands in entreaty. "Do not ask me of
_him_! I dare not answer--I dare not!"

"You have answered," said Stuart, in a voice unlike his own; for a
horrified amazement was creeping upon him and supplanting the
contemptuous anger which the discovery of this beautiful girl engaged
in pilfering his poor belongings had at first aroused.

The mystery of her operations was explained--explained by a deeper
and a darker mystery. The horror of the night had been no dream but
an almost incredible reality. He now saw before him an agent of the