ne in
the brilliantly lighted studio below them.

The men were Soane and his crony, the one-eyed pedlar. But neither
Thessalie nor Barres could see them up there behind the chimney.

Yet the girl, as though some unquiet instinct warned her, glanced up
at the eaves above her head once more, and Barres looked up, too.

"What do you see up there?" he inquired.

"Nothing.... There could be nobody up there to listen, could there?"

He laughed:

"Who would want to climb up on the roof to spy on you or me----"

"Don't speak so loud, Garry----"

"What on earth is the trouble?"

"The same trouble that drove me out of France," she said in a low
voice. "Don't ask me what it was. All I can tell you is this: I am
followed everywhere I go. I cannot make a living. Whenever I secure an
engagement and return at the appointed time to fill it, something
happens."

"What happens?" he asked bluntly.

"They repudiate the agreement," she said in a quiet voice. "They give
no reasons; they simply tell me that they don't want me. Do you
remember that evening when I left the Palace of Mirrors?"

"Indeed, I do----"

"That was only one example. I left with an excellent contract, signed.
The next day, when I returned, the management took my contract out of
my hands and tore it up."

"What! Why, that's outrageous----"

"Hush! That is only one instance. Everywhere it is the same. I am
accepted after a try-out; then, without apparent reason, I am told
not to return."

"You mean there is some conspiracy----" he began incredulously, but
she interrupted him with a white hand over his, nervously committing
him to silence:

"Listen, Garry! Men have followed me here from Europe. I am constantly
watched in New York. I cannot shake off this surveillance for very
long at a time. Sooner or later I become conscious again of curious
eyes regarding me; of features that all at once become unpleasantly
familiar in the throng. After several encounters in street or car or
restaurant, I recognise these. Often and often instinct alone warns me
that I am followed; sometimes I am so certain of it that I take pains
to prove it."

"Do you prove it?"

"Usually."

"Well, what the devil----"

"Hush! I seem to be getting into deeper trouble than that, Garry. I
have changed my residence so many, many times!--but every time
people get into my room when I am away and ransack my effects.... And
now I never enter my room unless the landlady is with me, o