Gabrielle dared not breathe.  Her discovery there meant her ruin.

The man who held her in his toils cast her an evil, threatening glance, raising his clenched fist in menace, as though daring her to make the slightest movement.  In his dark eyes showed a sinister expression, and his nether lip was hard.  She was, alas! utterly and completely in his power.

The safe was some distance away, and in order to reach and close it he would be compelled to pass the man in blue spectacles now standing, puzzled and surprised, in the centre of the great book-lined apartment.  Both of them could escape by the open window, but to do so would be to court discovery should the Baronet find his safe standing open.  In that case the alarm would be raised, and they would both be found outside the house, instead of within.

Slowly the old man drew his thin hand across his furrowed brow, and then, as a sudden recollection dawned upon him, he cried, “Ah, the window!  Why, that’s strange!  When I went out I closed it!  But it was open—­open—­as I came in!  Some one—­some one has entered here in my absence!”

With both his thin, wasted hands outstretched, he walked quickly to his safe, cleverly avoiding the furniture in his course, and next second discovered that the iron door stood wide open.

“Thieves!” he gasped aloud hoarsely as the truth dawned upon him.  “My papers!  Gabrielle’s voice!  What can all this mean?” And next moment he opened the door, crying, “Help!” and endeavouring to alarm the household.

In an instant Flockart dashed forward towards the safe, and, without being observed by Gabrielle, had slipped the key into his own pocket.

“Gabrielle,” cried the blind man, “you are here in the room.  I know you are.  You cannot deceive me.  I smell that new scent, which your aunt Annie sent you, upon your handkerchief.  Why don’t you speak to me?”

“Yes, dad,” she answered at last, in a low, strained voice, “I—­I am here.”

“Then what is meant by my safe being open?” he asked sternly, as all that Goslin had told him a little while before flashed across his memory.  “Why have you obtained a key to it?”

“I have no key,” was her quick answer.

“Come here,” he said.  “Let me take your hand.”

With great reluctance, her eyes fixed upon Flockart’s face, she did as she was bid, and as her father took her soft hand in his, he said in a stern, harsh tone, full of suspicion and quite unusual to him, “You are trembling, Gabrielle—­trembling, because—­because of my unexpected appearance, eh?”

The fair girl with the sweet face and dainty figure was silent.  What could she reply?

CHAPTER XX

TELLS OF FLOCKART’S TRIUMPH

“What are you doing here at this hour?” Gabrielle’s father demanded slowly, releasing her hand.  “Why are you prying into my affairs?” He had not detected Flockart’s presence, and believed himself alone with his daughter.