croscope. "Look!"

Grace bent over and applied her eye to the brass tube, then shrank back
with an exclamation of horror. "Richard!" she screamed, then turned on
Hartmann with the fury of a tigress. "Let him go--let him go--I say, or
I will--" She realized her helplessness--the futility of her threats,
and fell into the chair in a paroxysm of sobbing. Through the brass
tube, and the powerful lens which focused the light rays upon the space
below, she had seen Richard's face, white and drawn, within a disk of
blinding light, and apparently so near to her that she could have
reached out and touched it. In her momentary glance, she noted his
reddened eyes, the tears which coursed from beneath their lids, the
agony which distorted his countenance.

"Now will you tell me what I ask?" cried Hartmann, triumphantly.

Still she made no reply. Her heart was breaking, her suffering at the
knowledge of his suffering made her faint and weak, but even now she
could not bring herself to break the trust which Monsieur Lefevre had
placed in her. She sat huddled up in the chair, shaking from head to
foot with sobs.

Hartmann saw that her resistance was as yet unbroken. "Take her arm,
Mayer," he called out, as he seized her by one wrist. "Come along now.
We'll see if a closer view will have any effect." He snatched up a broad
leather strap from a shelf along the wall, then, with Mayer's
assistance, half-led, half dragged her to the iron stairway in the
corner. In a few moments they had paused before the door of the room
where the detective lay confined. Hartmann threw it open and pushed
Grace inside, while he and Mayer followed, closing the door behind them.

For a moment Grace was dazzled by the brightness of the light cone, and
the darkness of the remainder of the room. Then seeing Richard lying
helpless on the floor before her, she threw herself to her knees, put
her arms about his neck, and covered his face with kisses. "My
darling--my poor boy!" she cried, as she bent over him, her shoulders
shutting off from his tortured face the blinding rays of the light.
"What have they done to you?"

CHAPTER XX

Grace had remained upon her knees beside the prostrate figure of her
husband but a moment, when she was torn away by Hartmann and his
assistant, and before she realized their intention, the former had
slipped about her waist the broad leather strap he had brought from the
room above, and was busy securing it to an iron st