“Madame Duclos!” following this utterance of her name with an apology for the intrusion and a prayer for one minute’s interview.

Silence was his answer—­no stir anywhere.

Apprehensive of they knew not what, the two detectives started simultaneously, one for the door on their right, the other for that on the left.  When they met again in the ill-lighted hall, Mr. Gryce was shaking his head, but Sweetwater had lifted a beckoning finger.  Unconsciously moderating his step, Mr. Gryce followed him through one room to the door of another which he saw standing partly open.

Through the crack thus made between the hinges, they could get a very fair glimpse of what was going on inside.  They saw a bed, and a woman kneeling beside this bed, her eyes upraised in prayer.  The look which had awed them at the window was gone, and in its place was one so high and so full of religious faith that for an instant they were conscious of the reversal of all their ideas.

But only for an instant; for while they waited, hesitating to break in upon her evidently sincere devotions, she started to her feet and with a half-insane look about her, disappeared from their view in the direction of the hall.

Sweetwater was after her in a twinkling; but by the time he and Mr. Gryce, each going his separate way, had themselves reached the hall, it was to see the end door—­the one giving upon the plateau—­closing behind her.

“Madame!” called out Sweetwater, bounding briskly in her wake.

Mr. Gryce said nothing but approached with hastening steps the door which Sweetwater had left open behind him, and took a quick survey of the fenced-in plateau, the bridge and the towering trees beyond, toward which she seemed to be making.

“She cannot escape,” was his ready conclusion; and he shouted to Sweetwater to go easy.

Sweetwater, who was in the act of setting foot upon the bridge down which she was running, slacked up at this command and presently stopped, for she had stopped herself and was looking back from a spot about halfway across, with the air of one willing, at last, to hear what they had to say.

“Who are you?” she cried.  “And what do you want of me?”

“Are you not Madame Duclos?”

“Yes, I am Antoinette Duclos.”

“Then you must know why you are wanted by the police authorities of New York.  Your daughter—­”

Her hand went up.

“I’ve nothing to say—­nothing.  Will you take that for your answer and let me go?”

“Alas, madam, we cannot!” spoke up Mr. Gryce in his calm, benevolent way.  “Miss Duclos’ death was of a nature demanding an inquest.  Your testimony, hard as it may be for you to give it, is necessary for a righteous verdict.  That is all we want—­”

“It is too much!” she cried.  And with a quick glance upward she took another step or two along the bridge till she had reached the broken rail; and before Sweetwater in his dismay could more than give a horrified bound in her direction, she had made the fatal leap and was gone from their sight into the gorge below.