sun-dial stands. They have been boring across that rockery. An iron rod has been broken. It's there still."

"But why?" cried the excited Countess. "Why these two spots rather than others? What are they searching for? What do they want? Have you any indication?" They had not long to wait for her answer; and Dorothy delivered it slowly, as if to make it quite clear that here was the essential point of her inquiry: "The motive of these investigations is engraved on the marble of the fountain. You can see it from here? Sirens surround a column surmounted by a capital. Isn't it so? Well, on one of the faces of the capital are some letters--almost effaced letters."

"But we've never noticed them!" cried the Countess. "They are there," declared the young girl. "They are worn and hard to distinguish from the cracks in the marble. However, there is one word--a whole word--that one can reconstruct and read easily when once it has appeared to you." "What word?" "The word FORTUNA."

The three syllables came long-drawn-out in a silence of stupefaction. The Count repeated them in a hushed voice, staring at Dorothy, who went on: "Yes; the word FORTUNA. And this word you find again also on the column of the sun-dial. Even yet more obliterated, to such a degree that one rather divines that it is there rather than actually reads it. But it certainly is there. Each letter is in its place. You cannot doubt it."

The Count had not waited for her to finish speaking. Already he was out of the house; and through the open windows they saw him hurry to the fountain. He cast but one glance at it, passed in front of the sun-dial, and came quickly back. "Everything that mademoiselle says is the exact truth. They have dug at both spots ... and the word FORTUNA, which I saw at once, and which I had never seen before, gives the reason for their digging.... They have searched ... and perhaps they have found."

"No," the young girl asserted calmly. "Why do you say no? What do you know about it?" She hesitated. Her eyes met the eyes of d'Estreicher. He knew now, doubtless, that he was unmasked, and he began to understand what the young girl was driving at. But would she dare to go to extremities and join battle? And then what were the reasons for this unforeseen struggle? With an air of challenge he repeated the Countess's question: "Yes; why do you say that they have found nothing?"

Boldly Dorothy accepted the challenge. "Because the digging has gone on. There is in the ravine, under the walls of the château, among the stones which have fallen from 

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