and started toward the door, then seemed
for a moment to regret his brusqueness. "You will pardon me, I know, but
it is quite out of the question. Good-evening." In a moment he had gone.

Grace sat down and burst into tears. It was not the taking away of the
phonograph which distressed her--she felt that if anything could be
accomplished by its use, it had already been done--but the hopelessness
of the whole situation.

Nearly eighteen hours had elapsed, since she had stolen, half-fainting,
from the sight of Richard's white and agonized face. Even Lablanche's
assurances that Hartmann would do her husband no serious injury, failed
to comfort her. The whole affair of the phonograph seemed trivial and
useless. What message could the words of this song give him--what in
fact could they mean to anyone, except a message of hopeless love?

When the hour for going to bed had come, she threw herself, without
undressing, on the bed, and lay sleepless, in the darkened room. The
vision of Richard, as she had seen him, his face within the circle of
light, the night before, tortured her incessantly. It seemed somehow so
wrong, so cowardly of her, to lie here in comfort doing nothing to aid
him who, in name at least, was united to her forever, and in love was
more dear to her than her own soul. She could not sleep, and presently
rose and sat at the window, her elbows resting upon the sill, gazing
hungrily out at the little square brick building where she knew Richard
lay confined.

The hours of the night dragged along on leaden feet. Once she heard the
closing of a door, and the sound of footsteps echoing faintly upon the
cement floor of the lower corridor. Within the laboratory all seemed
dark. Evidently the doctor was not there. Then she heard, through her
half-opened door, noises of persons walking in the lower hallway of the
main building and after that the sharp closing of a door. She concluded
that Hartmann had gone into his office.

The woman on duty in the hall sat in her chair, reading and yawning.
After a time, Grace heard the faint ringing of her bell, and the woman,
after consulting the indicator, began to descend the stairs with a
surprised look upon her face. It seemed like a providential opportunity.
She slipped quietly through the doorway and sped as swiftly as she could
down the hall.

She reached the door opening into the corridor, without hearing or
seeing anything to cause her alarm, and passed through it uns