He had no scruple, no pity any longer for the girl.  There was no gain from the crime unless she spoke.  He would have placed his head in the guillotine for nothing.  He ran to the writing-table, tore off half a sheet of paper, and brought it over with a pencil to the sofa.  He gave them to Vauquier to hold, and drawing out the sofa from the wall slipped in behind.  He lifted up Celia with Rossignol’s help, and made her sit in the middle of the sofa with her feet upon the ground.  He unbound her wrists and fingers, and Vauquier placed the writing-pad and the paper on the girl’s knees.  Her arms were still pinioned above the elbows; she could not raise her hands high enough to snatch the scarf from her lips.  But with the pad held up to her she could write.

“Where did she keep her jewels!  Quick!  Take the pencil and write,” said Wethermill, holding her left wrist.

Vauquier thrust the pencil into her right hand, and awkwardly and slowly her gloved fingers moved across the page.

“I do not know,” she wrote; and, with an oath, Wethermill snatched the paper up, tore it into pieces, and threw it down.

“You have got to know,” he said, his face purple with passion, and he flung out his arm as though he would dash his fist into her face.  But as he stood with his arm poised there came a singular change upon his face.

“Did you hear anything?” he asked in a whisper.

All listened, and all heard in the quiet of the night a faint click, and after an interval they heard it again, and after another but shorter interval yet once more.

“That’s the gate,” said Wethermill in a whisper of fear, and a pulse of hope stirred within Celia.

He seized her wrists, crushed them together behind her, and swiftly fastened them once more.  Adele Rossignol sat down upon the floor, took the girl’s feet upon her lap, and quietly wrenched off her shoes.

“The light,” cried Wethermill in an agonised voice, and Helena Vauquier flew across the room and turned it off.

All three stood holding their breath, straining their ears in the dark room.  On the hard gravel of the drive outside footsteps became faintly audible, and grew louder and came near.  Adele whispered to Vauquier: 

“Has the girl a lover?”

And Helene Vauquier, even at that moment, laughed quietly.

All Celia’s heart and youth rose in revolt against her extremity.  If she could only free her lips!  The footsteps came round the corner of the house, they sounded on the drive outside the very window of this room.  One cry, and she would be saved.  She tossed back her head and tried to force the handkerchief out from between her teeth.  But Wethermill’s hand covered her mouth and held it closed.  The footsteps stopped, a light shone for a moment outside.  The very handle of the door was tried.  Within a few yards help was there—­help and life.  Just a frail latticed wooden door stood between her