should reach our ears. We
find that door upon the latch, the door of the room open; on the table
lies the morphia-needle. Upstairs lies Mlle. Celie--she is helpless,
she cannot see what they are meaning to do."

"But she could cry out," exclaimed Ricardo. "She did not even do that!"

"No, my friend, she could not cry out," replied Hanaud very seriously.
"I know why. She could not. No living man or woman could. Rest assured
of that!"

Ricardo was mystified; but since the captain of the ship would not show
his observation, he knew it would be in vain to press him.

"Well, while Adele was preparing her morphia-needle and Hippolyte was
about to prepare the boat, Jeanne upstairs was making her preparation
too. She was mending a sack. Did you see Mlle. Celie's eyes and face
when first she saw that sack? Ah! she understood! They meant to give
her a dose of morphia, and, as soon as she became unconscious, they
were going perhaps to take some terrible precaution--" Hanaud paused
for a second. "I only say perhaps as to that. But certainly they were
going to sew her up in that sack, row her well out across the lake, fix
a weight to her feet, and drop her quietly overboard. She was to wear
everything which she had brought with her to the house. Mlle. Celie
would have disappeared for ever, and left not even a ripple upon the
water to trace her by!"

Ricardo clenched his hands.

"But that's horrible!" he cried; and as he uttered the words the car
swerved into the drive and stopped before the door of the Hotel
Majestic.

Ricardo sprang out. A feeling of remorse seized hold of him. All
through that evening he had not given one thought to Harry Wethermill,
so utterly had the excitement of each moment engrossed his mind.

"He will be glad to know!" cried Ricardo. "Tonight, at all events, he
shall sleep. I ought to have telegraphed to him from Geneva that we and
Miss Celia were coming back." He ran up the steps into the hotel.

"I took care that he should know," said Hanaud, as he followed in
Ricardo's steps.

"Then the message could not have reached him, else he would have been
expecting us," replied Ricardo, as he hurried into the office, where a
clerk sat at his books.

"Is Mr. Wethermill in?" he asked.

The clerk eyed him strangely.

"Mr. Wethermill was arrested this evening," he said.

Ricardo stepped back.

"Arrested! When?"

"At twenty-five minutes past ten," replied the clerk shortly.

"Ah," said Hanaud qui