ake her
understand what he desired, he had to grip her wrist in the vice of his
nervous hand.

"The person is not there, perhaps," he said his head. "Understand me
now."

But she did not understand him. She said:

"Since the person is nowhere else, the person must be there."

But Rouletabille continued obstinately:

"No, no. Perhaps he is gone."

"Gone! And everything locked on the inside!"

"That is not a reason," he replied.

But she could not follow his thoughts any further. She wished absolutely
to make her way into Natacha's chamber. The obsession of that was upon
her.

"If you enter there," said he, "and if (as is most probable) you don't
find what you seek there, all is lost! And as to me, I give up the whole
thing."

She sank in a heap onto a chair.

"Don't despair," he murmured. "We don't know for sure yet."

She shook her poor old head dejectedly.

"We know that only she is here, since no one has been able to enter and
since no one has been able to leave."

That, in truth, filled her brain, prevented her from discerning in any
corner of her mind the thought of Rouletabille. Then the impossible
dialogue resumed.

"I repeat that we do not know but that the person has gone," repeated
the reporter, and demanded her keys.

"Foolish," she said. "What do you want them for?"

"To search outside as we have searched inside."

"Why, everything is locked on the inside!"

"Madame, once more, that is no reason that the person may not be
outside."

He consumed five minutes opening the door of the veranda, so many were
his precautions. She watched him impatiently.

He whispered to her:

"I am going out, but don't you lose sight of the little sitting-room. At
the least movement call me; fire a revolver if you need to."

He slipped into the garden with the same precautions for silence. From
the corner that she kept to, through the doors left open, Matrena could
follow all the movements of the reporter and watch Natacha's chamber
at the same time. The attitude of Rouletabille continued to confuse her
beyond all expression. She watched what he did as if she thought him
besotted. The dyernick on guard out in the roadway also watched the
young man through the bars of the gate in consternation, as though he
thought him a fool. Along the paths of beaten earth or cement which
offered no chance for footprints Rouletabille hurried silently. Around
him he noted that the grass of the lawn had not been trodd