a
time,--the peculiar noises heard from her side of the closet.

"Truly, this is the back shop of Monsieur de Beauchamp," said she, as
she stumbled upon a box. "If I only had a candle or a match."

She felt the box, which was almost square, and was so heavy she could
scarcely raise one end of it.

She groped along the wall, where similar boxes were piled up, and
began to wonder what on earth Monsieur de Beauchamp had stored there
in his back shop.

A startling suggestion stole into her mind,--perhaps it was----

She hastily sought the door by which she had entered, and in her
excitement she stumbled against it.

The door closed with a snap.

Mlle. Fouchette was not afraid of being alone in the dark, yet she
trembled nervously from head to foot.

She knew that the key was on the inside!

Then she remembered that other door only a few feet away with its key
on the inside and with Jean Marot on the outside. And she trembled
more than ever.

What would Jean think of her?

Of course, she knew he would be likely to force the closet door; but
when he had found her missing,--what then? Would he be angry? Would he
not suspect some trick? Would he persevere till he found her?

It was all about Jean,--of herself she scarcely thought, only so far
as the effect might come through him. All at once she felt rather than
heard the dull sound of the breaking door beyond.

"Ah! he has broken the door. He will come! He has discovered it!"

She beat the walls with her small fists,--kicked the unresponsive
stone with her thin little shoes,--her blows gave out no sound. If she
only had something to knock with----

She fumbled blindly in the darkness among the boxes. Perhaps--yes,
here was one open, and--

"Voila!"

She laid her hand on a heavy, cylindrical substance like a piece of
iron gas-pipe, only--funny, but it was packed in something like
sawdust.

She tapped smartly on the wall with it--once, twice, thrice--at
regular intervals, then listened.

The two similar raps from the other side showed that she was both
heard and understood.

"He has found it. Ah! here he is!"

And with her last exclamation Jean appeared, candle in hand, peering
into the room and at Mlle. Fouchette in the dazed way more
characteristic of the somnambulist than of one awake and in the full
possession of his senses.

"Mon Dieu! mon enfant, what have we here?" he ejaculated as soon as he
recovered breath. "What is it? Are you all right?