ey only testified to
the thorough literality of her statement. Leenoo, Eirale, and Elfe
followed her example with characteristic exactness. Equally
characteristic was the conduct of the others. Eunane kept aloof till
called, and then approached with an air of sullen reluctance, as if
summoned to receive a reprimand rather than a favour. Not a little
amused, I affected displeasure in my turn, till the window of her
chamber closed behind us, and her ill-humour was forgotten in
wondering alarm. Offered in private, the kiss and smile given and not
demanded, the present was accepted with frank affectionate gratitude.
Eive took her share in pettish shyness, waiting the moment when she
might mingle unobserved with her childlike caresses the childish
reproach--

"If you can buy kisses, Clasfempta, you don't want mine. And if you
fancy I sell them, you shall have no more."

I saw Davilo in the morning before we started. After some conversation
on business, he said--

"And pardon a suggestion which I make, not as in charge of your
affairs, but as responsible to our supreme authority for your safety.
No correspondence should pass from your household unscrutinised; and
if there be such correspondence, I must ask you to place in my hand,
for the purpose of our quest, not any message, but some of the slips
on which messages have been written. This may probably furnish
precisely that tangible means of relation with some one acquainted
with the conspiracy for which we have sought in vain."

My unwillingness to meddle with feminine correspondence was the less
intelligible to him that, as the master alone commands the household
telegraph, he knew that it must have passed through my hands. I
yielded at last to his repeated urgency that a life more precious than
mine was involved in any danger to myself, so far as to promise the
slips required, to furnish a possible means of _rapport_ between the
_clairvoyante_ and the enemy.

I returned to the house in grave thought. Eunane. corresponded by the
telegraph with some schoolmates; Eive, I fancied, with three or four
of those ladies with whom, accompanying me on my visits, she had made
acquaintance. But I hated the very thought of domestic suspicion, and,
adhering to my original resolve, refused to entertain a distrust that
seemed ill-founded and far-fetched. If there had been treachery, it
would be impossible to obtain any letters that might have been
preserved without resorting to a c