ournal, stained, discolored and worn. Lady Muriel slipped her hand
under these articles and lifted out the thing she sought.

Even in the pressing haste of her adventure, the woman could not forbear
to look at the thing upon which these two men set so great a value. She
stopped then a moment on her knees beside the safe, the prized article
in her hands.

A map, evidently drawn with extreme care, was before her. She glanced
at it hastily and turned the thing quickly over. What she saw amazed and
puzzled her. Even in this moment of tense emotions she was astonished:
She saw a pool of water,--not a pool of water in the ordinary sense--but
a segment of water, as one would take a certain limited area of the
surface of the sea or a lake or river. It was amber-colored and as
smooth as glass, and on the surface of this water, as though they
floated, were what appeared to be three, reddish-purple colored flowers,
and beneath them on the bottom of the water were huge indistinct
shadows.

The water was not clear to make out the shadows. But the appearing
flowers were delicately painted. They stood out conspicuously on the
glassy surface of the water as though they were raised above it.

Amazement held the woman longer than she thought, over this
extraordinary thing. Then she thrust it into the bosom of her jacket,
fastening the button securely over it.

The act kept her head down. When she lifted it Bramwell Winton was
standing in the door.

In terror her hand caught up the automatic pistol out of the tin box.
She acted with no clear, no determined intent. It was a gesture of fear
and of indecision; escape through menace was perhaps the subconscious
motive; the most primitive, the most common motive of all creatures in
the corner. It extends downward from the human mind through all life.

To spring up, to drag the veil over her face with her free hand, and to
thrust the weapon at the figure in the doorway was all simultaneous and
instinctive acts in the expression of this primordial impulse of escape
through menace.

Then a thing happened.

There was a sharp report and the figure standing in the doorway swayed
a moment and fell forward into the room. The unconscious gripping of the
woman's fingers had fired the pistol.

For a moment Lady Muriel stood unmoving, arrested in every muscle by
this accident. But her steady wits--skilled in her profession--did not
wholly desert her. She saw that the man was dead. There was pe