."

Celia, in her mind, could see them sitting about the round table in the
darkness, Mme. Dauvray between the two women, securely held by them.
And she herself could not utter a cry--could not move a muscle to help
her.

Wethermill crept back on noiseless feet to the window, closed the
wooden doors, and slid the bolts into their sockets. Yes, Helene
Vauquier was in the plot. The bolts and the hinges would not have
worked so smoothly but for her. Darkness again filled the recess
instead of the grey twilight. But in a moment a faint breath of wind
played upon Celia's forehead, and she knew that the man had parted the
curtains and slipped into the room. Celia let her head fall towards her
shoulder. She was sick and faint with terror. Her lover was in this
plot--the lover in whom she had felt so much pride, for whose sake she
had taken herself so bitterly to task. He was the associate of Adele
Rossignol, of Helene Vauquier. He had used her, Celia, as an instrument
for his crime. All their hours together at the Villa des Fleurs--here
to-night was their culmination. The blood buzzed in her ears and
hammered in the veins of her temples. In front of her eyes the darkness
whirled, flecked with fire. She would have fallen, but she could not
fall. Then, in the silence, a tambourine jangled. There was to be a
seance to-night, then, and the seance had begun. In a dreadful suspense
she heard Mme. Dauvray speak.

CHAPTER XIX

HELENE EXPLAINS

And what she heard made her blood run cold.

Mme Dauvray spoke in a hushed, awestruck voice.

"There is a presence in the room."

It was horrible to Celia that the poor woman was speaking the jargon
which she herself had taught to her.

"I will speak to it," said Mme. Dauvray, and raising her voice a
little, she asked: "Who are you that come to us from the spirit-world?"

No answer came, but all the while Celia knew that Wethermill was
stealing noiselessly across the floor towards that voice which spoke
this professional patter with so simple a solemnity.

"Answer!" she said. And the next moment she uttered a little shrill
cry--a cry of enthusiasm. "Fingers touch my forehead--now they touch my
cheek--now they touch my throat!"

And upon that the voice ceased. But a dry, choking sound was heard, and
a horrible scuffling and tapping of feet upon the polished floor, a
sound most dreadful. They were murdering her--murdering an old, kind
woman silently and methodically in the