“A mistake,” said Matrena, in a low voice.  “Miserable little domovoi who told me nothing, me whom you let go to sleep on my mattress, in front of that door that might open any moment.”

“No, madame.  For I was behind it!”

“Ah, dear little holy angel!  But what were you thinking of!  That door has not been watched this afternoon.  In our absence it could have been opened.  If someone has placed a bomb during our absence!”

“That is why I sent you at once in to the dining-room on that search that I thought would be fruitless, dear madame.  And that is why I hurried upstairs to the bedroom.  I went to the stairway door instantly.  I had prepared for proof positive if anyone had pushed it open even half a millimeter.  No, no one had touched the door in our absence.

“Ah, dear heroic little friend of Jesus!  But listen to me.  Listen to me, my angel.  Ah, I don’t know where I am or what I say.  My brain is no more than a flabby balloon punctured with pins, with little holes of hat-pins.  Tell me about the hat-pins.  Right off!  No, at first, what is it that makes you believe — good God! — that someone will return by that door?  How can you see that, all that, in a poor little hat-pin?”

“Madame, it is not a single hat-pin hole; there are two of them.

“Two hat-pin holes?”

“Yes, two.  An old one and a new one.  One quite new.  Why this second hole?  Because the old one was judged a little too narrow and they wished to enlarge it, and in enlarging it they broke off the point of a hat-pin in it.  Madame, the point is there yet, filling up the little old hole and the piece of metal is very sharp and very bright.”

“Now I understand the examination of the hat-pins.  Then it is so easy as that to get through a door with a hat-pin?”

“Nothing easier, especially if the panel is of pine.  Sometimes one happens to break the point of a pin in the first hole.  Then of necessity one makes a second.  In order to commence the second hole, the point of the pin being broken, they have used the point of a pen-knife, then have finished the hole with the hat-pin.  The second hole is still nearer the bolt than the first one.  Don’t move like that, madame.”

“But they are going to come!  They are going to come!”

“I believe so.”

“But I can’t understand how you can remain so quiet with such a certainty.  Great heavens! what proof have you that they have not been there already?”

“Just an ordinary pin, madame, not a hat-pin this time.  Don’t confuse the pins.  I will show you in a little while.”

“He will drive me distracted with his pins, dear light of my eyes!  Bounty of Heaven!  God’s envoy!  Dear little happiness-bearer!”

In her transport she tried to take him in her trembling arms, but he waved her back.  She caught her breath and resumed: 

“Did the examination of all the hat-pins tell you anything?”