seemed to him to be the most likely. Without a word he bent quickly down and seized it. He drew himself up, opened it with a furtive movement, and perceived, among some small white pebbles and shells, the two sapphires.

He looked at Dorothy. She was very pale.

CHAPTER IV THE CROSS-EXAMINATION

"Let's bolt!" again said Saint-Quentin, who had sunk down onto a trunk and would have been incapable of making a single step.

"A splendid idea!" said Dorothy in a low voice. "Harness One-eyed Magpie; let's all five of us hide ourselves in the caravan and hell for the Belgian frontier!"

She gazed steadfastly at her enemy. She felt that she was beaten. With one word he could hand her over to justice, throw her into prison, and render vain all her threats. Of what value are the accusations of a thief?

Box in hand, he balanced himself on one foot then on the other with ironical satisfaction. He had the appearance of waiting for her to weaken and become a suppliant. How he misjudged her! On the contrary, she maintained an attitude of defiance and challenge as if she had had the audacity to say to him: "If you speak, you're lost."

He shrugged his shoulders and turning to the inspector who had seen nothing of this byplay, he said: "We may congratulate ourselves on having got it over, and entirely to mademoiselle's advantage. Goodness, what a disagreeable job!"

"You had no business to set about it at all," said the Countess, coming up with the Count and Raoul Davernoie.

"Oh yes, I had, dear cousin. Your husband and I had our doubts. It was just as well to clear them up."

"And you've found nothing?" said the Count.

"Nothing ... less than nothing--at the most an odd trifle with which Mr. Montfaucon was playing, and which Mademoiselle Dorothy had been kind enough to give me. You do, don't you, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes," said Dorothy simply.

He displayed the card-board box, around which he had again drawn the rubber ring, and handing it to the Countess: "Take care of that till tomorrow morning, will you, dear lady?"

"Why should I take care of it and not you?"

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