a moment the girl's shoulders worked, her hands fluttered. But they
remained helplessly bound.

"Ah, you will be content, Adele, to-night," cried Mme. Dauvray eagerly.

But even in the midst of her eagerness--so thoroughly had she been
prepared--there lingered a flavour of doubt, of suspicion. In Celia's
mind there was still the one desperate resolve.

"I must succeed to-night," she said to herself--"I must!"

Adele Rossignol kneeled on the floor behind her. She gathered in
carefully the girl's frock. Then she picked up the long train, wound it
tightly round her limbs, pinioning and swathing them in the folds of
satin, and secured the folds with a cord about the knees.

She stood up again.

"Can you walk, Celie?" she asked. "Try!"

With Helene Vauquier to support her if she fell, Celia took a tiny
shuffling step forward, feeling supremely ridiculous. No one, however,
of her audience was inclined to laugh. To Mme. Dauvray the whole
business was as serious as the most solemn ceremonial. Adele was intent
upon making her knots secure. Helene Vauquier was the well-bred servant
who knew her place. It was not for her to laugh at her young mistress,
in however ludicrous a situation she might be.

"Now," said Adele, "we will tie mademoiselle's ankles, and then we
shall be ready for Mme. de Montespan."

The raillery in her voice had a note of savagery in it now. Celia's
vague terror grew. She had a feeling that a beast was waking in the
woman, and with it came a growing premonition of failure. Vainly she
cried to herself, "I must not fail to-night." But she felt
instinctively that there was a stronger personality than her own in
that room, taming her, condemning her to failure, influencing the
others.

She was placed in a chair. Adele passed a cord round her ankles, and
the mere touch of it quickened Celia to a spasm of revolt. Her last
little remnant of liberty was being taken from her. She raised herself,
or rather would have raised herself. But Helene with gentle hands held
her in the chair, and whispered under her breath:

"Have no fear! Madame is watching."

Adele looked fiercely up into the girl's face.

"Keep still, hein, la petite!" she cried. And the epithet--"little
one"--was a light to Celia. Till now, upon these occasions, with her
black ceremonial dress, her air of aloofness, her vague eyes, and the
dignity of her carriage, she had already produced some part of their
effect before the seance had begun