The inner one, used only by the president of the concern,
opened on his left. There was no one in the latter room at present, the
president seldom showing up at night. Another door led to the platform
outside, and a third one, located in the middle of the right-hand
partition, to a large vestibule or locker-room belonging exclusively to
the girls, which in its turn communicated with the work-rooms of the
factory running in unbroken continuity around a narrow central court.

He had been through this locker-room in the late afternoon. It was here
he had stood to watch the girls file out at the close of their day's
work. The exit for all employees was in one of the corners and out of
this Antoinette Duclos would have to pass when it came her turn to leave
the building--that is, if she were really in it, as he had every
reason to believe.

However, certainty on this point would relieve him from much of his
present impatience, and with this end in view he prepared to enter the
room again in the hope of spying among the various hats with which the
walls were hung the one with whose shape and trimming he was so well
acquainted.

But promising as this attempt looked, it was destined to immediate
failure. The room was not empty. He could hear girls whispering not a
dozen steps away, and anxious as he always was not to attract any
unnecessary attention to himself, he turned his back upon this door and
returned to the window from the broad view of which he anticipated so
much.

A brilliant scene awaited him. This building, built originally for other
purposes, had been hastily reconstructed for its present use in a manner
possibly open to criticism but which certainly gave those who worked in
it an abundance of light and air. The narrow columns supporting its three
stories were so inconspicuous at night when a blaze of electricity
dominated the whole, that it presented the appearance of being made
entirely of windows. One break and one only he observed in the double row
of lights encircling the courtyard. This was in a spot diagonally
opposite, where a space of several feet showed a dimness he failed to
understand. But as no workers appeared to be there, he passed the matter
over as one of no importance.

The task before him looked hopeless. In the first place there were the
three floors, with no faces visible above the first one. Then of the long
rectangle stretching out before him he could see but two sides, which
fact was