m the
window full on the black curtain, and showed up the yellow hand.
Fascinated, she gazed into the mirror, wondering the while why, now that
the horror actually confronted her, she felt so little fear, whereas
before she had started and trembled at each gust of wind. Now the hand
emerged further from out the hangings. An arm in a brown sleeve appeared.
Then the curtains parted, and her Highness saw a ferret-like face appear.
She knew that this was no phantom. Swiftly she calculated the distance
between her and the hand-bell. She remembered that only her tiring-maid
would come in answer to the usual daily summons. If this man was indeed
an assassin, he would do his work immediately; kill her ere the woman
could come, and the unsuspecting maid herself might easily be silenced
with one stab from that pointed dagger. All this the Duchess realised in
a flash. She had never thought so rapidly in her life. No! she must not
ring; she must dupe the murderer! Her eyes met the assassin's in the
mirror, but she had the strength to return the gaze in an abstracted
fashion, so that the man should be uncertain whether she had seen him, or
whether the mirror had failed, by some strange chance, to transmit his
reflection. Instinctively she felt that her death-warrant would be signed
did the man know her to be aware of his presence. She moved towards the
table; thus she was out of the mirror's range, and she therefore could
not see what the man was doing in the adjoining apartment. 'Dupe him!
escape by ruse! get out of the rooms to the ante-hall, let him think I am
coming back!' Dully this thought struggled in her mind. With
extraordinary calmness she commenced to move the books on the table,
purposely rustling the pages. Then suddenly she knew her only way of
escape.

'Curious!' she said aloud; 'I thought my other book was here. I have left
it next door. I must find it and return to read and rest.' As she said
the words she walked into the sleeping-room. 'God give me strength not to
look towards the bed,' she prayed silently. 'Lord, in thy hands are all
things. It is blasphemy to fear.'

Now she was in the shadowy bedroom; she moved slowly across, saying again
aloud: 'I will fetch the volume and return.' As the words left her lips
she realised she had spoken in French; her ruse was useless then! The
murderer was probably some illiterate scoundrel; how should he
comprehend? But her dogged, methodical nature stood her in good stead. I