But he came at once straight towards her.  He stood in front of her, looking into her eyes.  But he uttered no cry.  He made no movement of surprise.  Celia did not understand it.  His face was in the shadow now and she could not see it.  Of course, he was stunned, amazed.  But—­but—­he stood almost as if he had expected to find her there and just in that helpless attitude.  It was absurd, of course, but he seemed to look upon her helplessness as nothing out of the ordinary way.  And he raised no hand to set her free.  A chill struck through her.  But the next moment he did raise his hand and the blood flowed again, at her heart.  Of course, she was in the darkness.  He had not seen her plight.  Even now he was only beginning to be aware of it.  For his hand touched the bandage over her mouth—­tentatively.  He felt for the knot under the broad brim of her hat at the back of her head.  He found it.  In a moment she would be free.  She kept her head quite still, and then—­why was he so long? she asked herself.  Oh, it was not possible!  But her heart seemed to stop, and she knew that it was not only possible—­it was true:  he was tightening the scarf, not loosening it.  The folds bound her lips more surely.  She felt the ends drawn close at the back of her head.  In a frenzy she tried to shake her head free.  But he held her face firmly and finished his work.  He was wearing gloves, she noticed with horror, just as thieves do.  Then his hands slid down her trembling arms and tested the cord about her wrists.  There was something horribly deliberate about his movements.  Celia, even at that moment, even with him, had the sensation which had possessed her in the salon.  It was the personal equation on which she was used to rely.  But neither Adele nor this—­this stranger was considering her as even a human being.  She was a pawn in their game, and they used her, careless of her terror, her beauty, her pain.  Then he freed from her waist the long cord which ran beneath the curtain to Adele Rossignol’s foot.  Celia’s first thought was one of relief.  He would jerk the cord unwittingly.  They would come into the recess and see him.  And then the real truth flashed in upon her blindingly.  He had jerked the cord, but he had jerked it deliberately.  He was already winding it up in a coil as it slid noiselessly across the polished floor beneath the curtains towards him.  He had given a signal to Adele Rossignol.  All that woman’s scepticism and precaution against trickery had been a mere blind, under cover of which she had been able to pack the girl away securely without arousing her suspicions.  Helene Vauquier was in the plot, too.  The scarf at Celia’s mouth was proof of that.  As if to add proof to proof, she heard Adele Rossignol speak in answer to the signal.

“Are we all ready?  Have you got Mme. Dauvray’s left hand, Helene?”

“Yes, madame,” answered the maid.

“And I have her right hand.  Now give me yours, and thus we are in a circle about the table.”