eot first. I wasn't down at
breakfast yet, so I don't know what he said, but they went off together.
I'm afraid it was a trick. Then about twenty minutes later the same man
came back and said M. Pougeot was with you and that he had been sent to
bring me to you. He showed me your ring and----"

"Yes, yes, I understand," interrupted Coquenil. "You are not to blame,
only--God, what can I do?" He searched the shadows with a savage sense of
helplessness.

"But it's all right, now, M. Paul," she said confidently, "I am with
_you_."

Her look of perfect trust came to him with a stab of pain.

"My poor child," he muttered, peering about him, "I'm afraid we are--in
trouble--but--wait a minute."

Taking the candle, Coquenil went through the arched opening into the
larger chamber and made a hurried inspection. The room was about fifteen
feet square and ten feet high, with everything of stone--walls, floor, and
arched ceiling. Save for the passage into the smaller room, there was no
sign of an opening anywhere except two small square holes near the ceiling,
probably ventilating shafts.

[Illustration:

A. Bag of shavings where Coquenil recovered consciousness in large
underground chamber.

B. Table and two chairs in smaller chamber where de Heidelmann-Bruck was
writing.

C C C C C C. Logs of wood piled around walls of two chambers.

D. Heavy iron door through which Alice was brought in.

E. Stone shelf above wood pile.

F. F. Opening through thick wall separating chambers, where Coquenil built
a barricade of logs. Dotted lines 1-2, indicate curve of archway.

S. S. Section of wood pile torn down by Alice to make barricade.

X. The second barricade of logs.]

Around the four walls were logs piled evenly to the height of nearly six
feet, and at the archway the pile ran straight through into the smaller
room. The logs were in two-foot lengths, and as the archway was about four
feet wide, the passage between the two rooms was half blocked with wood.

Coquenil walked slowly around the chamber, peering carefully into cracks
between the logs, as if searching for something. As he went on he held the
candle lower and lower, and presently got down upon his hands and knees and
crept along the base of the pile.

"What _are_ you doing?" asked Alice, watching him in wonder from the
archway.

Without replying, the detective rose to his feet, and holding the candle
high above his head, examined the walls above the wood pile.