th the casement, had the top of its
woodwork raised and resting against the panes, exactly like the lid of a
chest. And inside the open chest he saw the upper rungs of a narrow
descending ladder.

In a second, Don Luis conjured up the whole story of the past: Count
Malonyi's ancestress hiding in the old family mansion, escaping the
search of the perquisitors, and in this way living throughout the
revolutionary troubles. Everything was explained. A passage contrived in
the thickness of the wall led to some distant outlet. And this was how
Florence used to come and go through the house; this was how Gaston went
in and out in all security; and this also was how both of them were able
to enter his room and surprise his secrets.

"Why not have told me?" he wondered. "A lingering suspicion, I suppose--"

But his eyes were attracted by a sheet of paper on the table. With
a feverish hand, Gaston Sauverand had scribbled the following lines
in pencil:

"We are trying to escape so as not to compromise you. If we are caught,
it can't be helped. The great thing is that you should be free. All our
hopes are centred in you."

Below were two words written by Florence: "Save Marie."

"Ah," he murmured, disconcerted by the turn of events and not knowing
what to decide, "why, oh, why did they not obey my instructions? We are
separated now--"

Downstairs the detectives were battering at the door of the passage in
which they were imprisoned. Perhaps he would still have time to reach his
motor before they succeeded in breaking down the door. Nevertheless, he
preferred to take the same road as Florence and Sauverand, which gave him
the hope of saving them and of rescuing them in case of danger.

He therefore stepped over the side of the chest, placed his foot on the
top rung and went down. Some twenty bars brought him to the middle of the
first floor. Here, by the light of his electric lantern, he entered a
sort of low, vaulted tunnel, dug, as he thought, in the wall, and so
narrow that he could only walk along it sideways.

Thirty yards farther there was a bend, at right angles; and next, at the
end of another tunnel of the same length, a trapdoor, which stood open,
revealing the rungs of a second ladder. He did not doubt that the
fugitives had gone this way.

It was quite light at the bottom. Here he found himself in a cupboard
which was also open and which, on ordinary occasions, must have been
covered by curtains that were now