uick glance around showed him that no one was there, and with a
great heart-throb of fear he boldly entered.

Everything was exactly as he had left it when, the day before, he had
so carefully arranged the room for the girl's comfort and pleasure.

The beautiful dresses hung over the foot-board of the bed--not even a
fold had been disturbed--while the elegant sealskin cloak and the
dainty hat and muff lay exactly as he had placed them, to display them
to the best advantage.

The veins swelled out hard and full on his forehead--a gleam of
baffled rage leaped into his eyes.

He sprang to the closet, throwing wide the door.

It was empty.

"She may have gone to the toilet-room," he muttered, grasping at this
straw of hope.

He dashed across the hall and rapped upon the door.

But he met with no response.

He entered. The place was empty.

Back into the south chamber he sprang again, and began to search for
Edith's hats and wraps.

Not an article of her clothing was visible.

He tried to open her trunk.

Of course it was locked.

He was now white as death, and actually shaking with anger.

He went to the dressing-case and mechanically opened the upper drawer.

All the costly treasures that he had purchased to tempt his bride lay
there, exactly as he had placed them; he doubted if she had even seen
them.

With a curse on his lips he went out, and looked into every other room
on that floor; but it was, of course, a fruitless search.

Then he turned into the rear hall and went down the back stairs.

Ah! the door at the bottom was ajar.

Another moment he was in the lower hall, to find the area door
unfastened; then he knew how his bird had flown.

He instantly summoned the servants, and took them to task for their
negligence.

Both the cook and the chambermaid avowed that no one but the gas-man
had entered or gone out by the area door that afternoon.

But, upon questioning them closely, Emil Correlli ascertained that the
outer door had been left unfastened "just a moment, while the man went
to the meter, to take the figures."

A close search revealed the fact that the key to the stairway door was
missing, and, putting this and that together, the keen-witted man
reasoned out just what had happened.

He believed that Giulia had stolen in through the area door close upon
the heels of the gas-man; that she had found the key, unlocked the
stairway-door, and made her way up to the library to seek an