her name with an apology for
the intrusion and a prayer for one minute's interview.

Silence was his answer--no stir anywhere.

Apprehensive of they knew not what, the two detectives started
simultaneously, one for the door on their right, the other for that on
the left. When they met again in the ill-lighted hall, Mr. Gryce was
shaking his head, but Sweetwater had lifted a beckoning finger.
Unconsciously moderating his step, Mr. Gryce followed him through one
room to the door of another which he saw standing partly open.

Through the crack thus made between the hinges, they could get a very
fair glimpse of what was going on inside. They saw a bed, and a woman
kneeling beside this bed, her eyes upraised in prayer. The look which had
awed them at the window was gone, and in its place was one so high and so
full of religious faith that for an instant they were conscious of the
reversal of all their ideas.

But only for an instant; for while they waited, hesitating to break in
upon her evidently sincere devotions, she started to her feet and with a
half-insane look about her, disappeared from their view in the direction
of the hall.

Sweetwater was after her in a twinkling; but by the time he and Mr.
Gryce, each going his separate way, had themselves reached the hall, it
was to see the end door--the one giving upon the plateau--closing behind
her.

"Madame!" called out Sweetwater, bounding briskly in her wake.

Mr. Gryce said nothing but approached with hastening steps the door which
Sweetwater had left open behind him, and took a quick survey of the
fenced-in plateau, the bridge and the towering trees beyond, toward which
she seemed to be making.

"She cannot escape," was his ready conclusion; and he shouted to
Sweetwater to go easy.

Sweetwater, who was in the act of setting foot upon the bridge down which
she was running, slacked up at this command and presently stopped, for
she had stopped herself and was looking back from a spot about halfway
across, with the air of one willing, at last, to hear what they had to
say.

"Who are you?" she cried. "And what do you want of me?"

"Are you not Madame Duclos?"

"Yes, I am Antoinette Duclos."

"Then you must know why you are wanted by the police authorities of New
York. Your daughter--"

Her hand went up.

"I've nothing to say--nothing. Will you take that for your answer and let
me go?"

"Alas, madam, we cannot!" spoke up Mr. Gryce in his calm, benevolent