She drew up a chair to Celia’s side, and sat down upon it comfortably.

“I will tell you what we are going to do with you, Mlle. Celie.  Adele Rossignol and that kind gentleman, M. Wethermill, are going to take you away with them.  You will be glad to go, won’t you, dearie?  For you love M. Wethermill, don’t you?  Oh, they won’t keep you long enough for you to get tired of them.  Do not fear!  But you will not come back, Mile.  Celie.  No; you have seen too much to-night.  And every one will think that Mlle. Celie helped to murder and rob her benefactress.  They are certain to suspect some one, so why not you, pretty one?”

Celia made no movement.  She lay trying to believe that no crime had been committed, that that lifeless body did not lie against the wall.  And then she heard in the room above a bed wheeled roughly from its place.

The two women heard it too, and looked at one another.

“He should look in the safe,” said Vauquier.  “Go and see what he is doing.”

And Adele Rossignol ran from the room.

As soon as she was gone Vauquier followed to the door, listened, closed it gently, and came back.  She stooped down.

“Mlle. Celie,” she said, in a smooth, silky voice, which terrified the girl more than her harsh tones, “there is just one little thing wrong in your appearance, one tiny little piece of bad taste, if mademoiselle will pardon a poor servant the expression.  I did not mention it before Adele Rossignol; she is so severe in her criticism, is she not?  But since we are alone, I will presume to point out to mademoiselle that those diamond eardrops which I see peeping out under the scarf are a little ostentatious in her present predicament.  They are a provocation to thieves.  Will mademoiselle permit me to remove them?”

She caught her by the neck and lifted her up.  She pushed the lace scarf up at the side of Celia’s head.  Celia began to struggle furiously, convulsively.  She kicked and writhed, and a little tearing sound was heard.  One of her shoe-buckles had caught in the thin silk covering of the cushion and slit it.  Helene Vauquier let her fall.  She felt composedly in her pocket, and drew from it an aluminium flask—­the same flask which Lemerre was afterward to snatch up in the bedroom in Geneva.  Celia stared at her in dread.  She saw the flask flashing in the light.  She shrank from it.  She wondered what new horror was to grip her.  Helene unscrewed the top and laughed pleasantly.

“Mlle. Celie is under control,” she said.  “We shall have to teach her that it is not polite in young ladies to kick.”  She pressed Celia down with a hand upon her back, and her voice changed.  “Lie still,” she commanded savagely.  “Do you hear?  Do you know what this is, Mlle. Celie?” And she held the flask towards the girl’s face.  “This is vitriol, my pretty one.  Move, and I’ll spoil these smooth white shoulders for you.  How would you like that?”