open door beside her "and my bedroom. You can
look in this room, if that is what you want."

Waters heard the answering yap of the policeman and the shuffle of
feet. He turned in panic; there was no time to reason with events. A
step, and his groping hands were against that inner door, which
yielded to their touch. Even in the chaos of his wits, he was aware
of that subtle odor he had perceived before, that elusive fragrance
which seemed a very emanation of chaste girlhood and virgin delicacy.
He was inside, leaving the door an inch ajar, as the switch clicked
in the outer room and a narrow jet of light stabbed through the
opening.

"You see, there is nobody," Miss Pilgrim was saying.

The citizens, faithful to the trial, had crowded in. The policeman
grunted doubtfully.

Waters, easing his breath noiselessly, let his eyes wander. The
streak of light lay across the floor and up over the counterpane of a
narrow wooden bed, then climbed the wall across the face of a picture
to the ceiling. Beyond its illumination, there were dim shapes of a
dressing-table and a wash-hand-stand, and there were dresses hanging
on the wall beside him behind a sheet draped from a shelf. A window,
high and double-paned, gave on the courtyard. Through it he could see
the lights shining in curtained windows opposite.

"That?" It was Miss Pilgrim answering some question. "That is my
bedroom. No; you must not go in there!"

There was a hush and a citizen said "Ah!" loudly and knowingly.
Waters, listening intently, frowned.

"I must look," said the policeman curtly.

"But" her voice came from near the door, as though she were standing
before it, barring the way to them, "you certainly shall not look. It
is my bedroom, and even if your man had come here" she broke off
abruptly. "You see he is not here," she added.

"I must look," repeated the policeman in exactly the same tone as
before. "It is necessary."

"No," she said. "You must take my word. If you do not, I shall
complain tomorrow morning to the consul and to the Chief of Police
and you shall be punished."

"H'm!" The policeman was in doubt; she had spoken with a plain effect
of meaning what she said, and a policeman's head upon a charger is a
small sacrifice for a courteous Chief to offer to a lady friend. He
tried to be reasonable with her.

"It was because he was seen to come this way," he argued. "He passed
the next house and the dvornik this man here! saw him. He had
com