off!"

The woman was panting a little by this time, for her thoughts were of
Durkin and his danger, as much as of herself. She struggled desperately
to regain her self-possession, for there was no mistaking the quiet but
grim determination written on the Russian's pallid face. And she knew he
was not alone in whatever plot he had laid.

She would have spoken, only the sudden flood of blackness that submerged
her startled her into silence. The lights had gone out.

She demanded of herself quickly, what should be her first move.

While she stood in momentary suspense, a knock sounded still once more on
her door.

"Come in," she called out quickly, loudly, now alert and alive to every
movement.

It was Keenan who stepped in from the half-lighted hall. He would have
paused, in involuntary amazement, at the utter darkness that greeted him,
only footsteps approaching and passing compelled him to act quickly.

He stepped inside and closed and locked the door.

She had not been mistaken. He _had_ come back.

CHAPTER XIII

"THE FOLLY OF GRANDEUR"

There flashed through Frances Durkin's mind, in the momentary silence
that fell over that strange company, the consciousness that the
triangle was completed; that there, in one room, through a
fortuitousness that seemed to her more factitious than actual, stood
the three contending and opposing forces. The thought came and went
like a flash, for it was not a time for meditation, but for hurried and
desperate action. The sense of something vast and ominous seemed to
hang over the darkness, where, for a second or two, the silence of
absolute surprise reigned.

The last-comer, too, seemed to feel this sense of something impending,
for a moment later his voice rang out, clear and unhesitating, with a
touch of challenge in it.

"Miss Allen, are you here? And is anything wrong?"

"Stand where you are!" the voice of the woman answered, through the
darkness, firm and clear. "Yes. I am here. But there is another
person in this room. He is a man who means harm, I believe, to both of
us!"

"Ah!" said the voice near the door.

The woman was speaking again, her voice high and nervous, from the
continued suspense of that darkness and silence combined, a dual
mystery from which any bolt might strike.

"Above all things," she warned him, "you must watch that door!"

Her straining ears heard a quiet click-click; she had learned of old
the meaning of that pregn