man's face was flushed and that he was laboring under some excitement.
He sat down, fumbled over some papers, rose quickly to his feet, looked
at his watch, and began pacing back and forth across the room.

"So she's coming," he chuckled gleefully.

"She's coming, at last!" He looked at his watch again, straightened
his cravat before a mirror, and rubbed his hands with a low laugh. "The
little beauty has surrendered," he went on, his face turning for an
instant toward the coffin box. "And it's time--past time."

A light knock sounded at the door, and the chief sprang to open it. A
figure darted past him, and for but a breath a white, beautiful face was
turned toward Philip and his prison--the face of the young woman whom he
had seen but two hours before in Le Pas, the face that had pleaded with
him that night, that had smiled upon him from the photograph, and that
seemed to be masked now in a cold marble-like horror, as its glorious
eyes, like pools of glowing fire, seemed searching him out through that
narrow slit in the coffin box.

Hodges had advanced, with arms reaching out, and the woman turned with a
low, sobbing breath breaking from her lips.

Another step and Hodges would have taken her in his arms, but she evaded
him with a quick movement, and pointed to a chair at one side of the
table.

"Sit down!" she cried softly. "Sit down, and listen!"

Was it fancy, or did her eyes turn with almost a prayer in them to the
box against the wall? Philip's heart was beating like a drum. That one
word he knew was intended for him.

"Sit down," she repeated, as Hodges hesitated. "Sit down--there--and I
will sit here. Before--before you touch me, I want an understanding. You
will let me talk, and listen--listen!"

Again that one word--"listen!"-Philip knew was intended for him.

The chief had dropped into his chair, and his visitor seated herself
opposite him, with her face toward Philip. She flung back the fur from
about her shoulders, and took off her fur turban, so that the light of
the big hanging lamp fell full upon the glory of her hair, and set
off more vividly the ivory pallor of her cheeks, in which a short time
before Philip had seen the rich crimson glow of life, and something that
was not fear.

"We must come to an understanding," she repeated, fixing her eyes
steadily upon the man before her. "I would sacrifice my life for
him--for my husband--and you are demanding that I do more than that. I
must be s