d to get at my trinkets. I never
even trouble to lock the thing. I'd rather lose the jewels--and collect the
insurance money--than be frightened out of my wits by hearing it blown
open. No, thanks ever so: any cracksman skillful enough to pick the lock on
the door may bag his loot and go in peace for all of me!"

Impulse, at least she called it that, moved Sofia to approach and
cautiously open the door still wider.

Upon the antique writing-desk that housed the safe burned a single lamp of
low candle-power. A door that led to the adjoining bedchamber was tightly
shut. Sofia's mistrustful eyes reconnoitred every corner of the room, and
reckoned it empty. Again obedient to undisputed impulse, she stepped inside
and shut the door. The spring-latch of the American lock found its socket
with a soft click. Thereafter, silence, no sound in the boudoir, none from
the room beyond. But to Sofia the hurried beating of her heart reverberated
on the stillness like the rolling of a drum.

Without clear appreciation of how she had got there, she found herself
standing over the writing-desk, and discovered what the indifferent light
had till now kept hidden, that a false panel in the front of the desk had
been thrust back, exposing the face of the safe, and that this last was not
even closed.

At the same time she grew conscious that her hands were shaking violently,
that her every limb, her whole body indeed, was agitated by desperate
trembling. And dully asked herself why this should be ... But didn't
hesitate.

Her actions now more than ever resembled those of an unthinking puppet,
although she knew quite well what she was doing; and her gestures might
have been the fruit of long lessoning at the hands of some master of stage
melodrama, so true were they to theatrical convention.

With furtive, frightened glances toward both doors, Sofia dropped to her
knees before the safe....

When she stood up again her hands were filled with jewellery, her two hands
held a treasure of incalculable price in precious stones.

She paused for a little, staring at them with dilate eyes dark in a pale,
rapt face. Her lips were parted, but only her quickened breathing whispered
past them. She was trembling more painfully than ever. But she seemed
unable to think of anything but the jewels, her gaze was held in
fascination by their coruscant loveliness as revealed by the light of the
little lamp.

Hers for the taking!

Then, without warning,