“Now,” said Adele.

She took the girl by the shoulders and set her in a clear space in the middle of the room, her back to the recess, her face to the mirror, where all could see her.

“Now, Celie”—­she had dropped the “Mlle.” and the ironic suavity of her manner—­“try to free yourself.”

For a moment the girl’s shoulders worked, her hands fluttered.  But they remained helplessly bound.

“Ah, you will be content, Adele, to-night,” cried Mme. Dauvray eagerly.

But even in the midst of her eagerness—­so thoroughly had she been prepared—­there lingered a flavour of doubt, of suspicion.  In Celia’s mind there was still the one desperate resolve.

“I must succeed to-night,” she said to herself—­“I must!”

Adele Rossignol kneeled on the floor behind her.  She gathered in carefully the girl’s frock.  Then she picked up the long train, wound it tightly round her limbs, pinioning and swathing them in the folds of satin, and secured the folds with a cord about the knees.

She stood up again.

“Can you walk, Celie?” she asked.  “Try!”

With Helene Vauquier to support her if she fell, Celia took a tiny shuffling step forward, feeling supremely ridiculous.  No one, however, of her audience was inclined to laugh.  To Mme. Dauvray the whole business was as serious as the most solemn ceremonial.  Adele was intent upon making her knots secure.  Helene Vauquier was the well-bred servant who knew her place.  It was not for her to laugh at her young mistress, in however ludicrous a situation she might be.

“Now,” said Adele, “we will tie mademoiselle’s ankles, and then we shall be ready for Mme. de Montespan.”

The raillery in her voice had a note of savagery in it now.  Celia’s vague terror grew.  She had a feeling that a beast was waking in the woman, and with it came a growing premonition of failure.  Vainly she cried to herself, “I must not fail to-night.”  But she felt instinctively that there was a stronger personality than her own in that room, taming her, condemning her to failure, influencing the others.

She was placed in a chair.  Adele passed a cord round her ankles, and the mere touch of it quickened Celia to a spasm of revolt.  Her last little remnant of liberty was being taken from her.  She raised herself, or rather would have raised herself.  But Helene with gentle hands held her in the chair, and whispered under her breath: 

“Have no fear!  Madame is watching.”

Adele looked fiercely up into the girl’s face.

“Keep still, hein, la petite!” she cried.  And the epithet—­“little one”—­was a light to Celia.  Till now, upon these occasions, with her black ceremonial dress, her air of aloofness, her vague eyes, and the dignity of her carriage, she had already produced some part of their effect before the seance had begun.  She had been wont to sail into the room, distant, mystical.  She had her