both the man and the child were deep in sleep. Then Jan stopped. There
was the fire of a keen wakefulness in his eyes as he carefully
unfastened the strings of his instrument, and held it close to the oil
lamp, so that he could peer down through the narrow aperture in the
box.

He looked again at Cummins. The man was sleeping with his face to the
wall. With the hooked wire which he used for cleaning his revolver Jan
fished gently at the very end of the box, and after three or four
efforts the wire caught in something soft, which he pulled toward him.
Through the bulge in the F-hole he dragged forth a small, tightly
rolled cylinder of faded red cloth.

For a few moments he sat watching the deep breathing of Cummins,
unrolling the cloth as he watched, until he had spread out upon the
table before him a number of closely written pages of paper. He
weighted them at one end with his violin, and held them down at the
other with his hands. The writing was in French. Several of the pages
were in a heavy masculine hand, the words running one upon another so
closely that in places they seemed to be connected; and from them Jan
took his fingers, so that they rolled up like a spring. Over the
others he bent his head, and there came from him a low, sobbing
breath.

On these pages the writing was that of a woman, and from the paper
there still rose a faint, sweet scent of heliotrope. For half an hour
Jan gazed upon them, reading the words slowly, until he came to the
last page.

When there came a movement from over against the wall, he lifted for