they are going to come! They are going to come!"

"I believe so."

"But I can't understand how you can remain so quiet with such a
certainty. Great heavens! what proof have you that they have not been
there already?"

"Just an ordinary pin, madame, not a hat-pin this time. Don't confuse
the pins. I will show you in a little while."

"He will drive me distracted with his pins, dear light of my eyes!
Bounty of Heaven! God's envoy! Dear little happiness-bearer!"

In her transport she tried to take him in her trembling arms, but he
waved her back. She caught her breath and resumed:

"Did the examination of all the hat-pins tell you anything?"

"Yes. The fifth hat-pin of Mademoiselle Natacha's, the one in the toque
out in the veranda, has the tip newly broken off."

"O misery!" cried Matrena, crumpling in her chair.

Rouletabille raised her.

"What would you have? I have examined your own hat-pins. Do you think
I would have suspected you if I had found one of them broken? I
would simply have thought that someone had used your property for an
abominable purpose, that is all."

"Oh, that is true, that is true. Pardon me. Mother of Christ, this boy
crazes me! He consoles me and he horrifies me. He makes me think of such
dreadful things, and then he reassures me. He does what he wishes with
me. What should I become without him?"

And this time she succeeded in taking his head in her two hands and
kissing him passionately. Rouletabille pushed her back roughly.

"You keep me from seeing," he said.

She was in tears over his rebuff. She understood now. Rouletabille
during all this conversation had not ceased to watch through the open
doors of Matrena's room and the dressing-room the farther fatal door
whose brass bolt shone in the yellow light of the night-lamp.

At last he made her a sign and the reporter, followed by Matrena,
advanced on tip-toe to the threshold of the general's chamber, keeping
close to the wall. Feodor Feodorovitch slept. They heard his heavy
breath, but he appeared to be enjoying peaceful sleep. The horrors of
the night before had fled. Matrena was perhaps right in attributing the
nightmares to the narcotic prepared for him each night, for the glass
from which he drank it when he felt he could not sleep was still full
and obviously had not been touched. The bed of the general was so placed
that whoever occupied it, even if they were wide awake, could not see
the door giving on the servants'