d with a crazy impulse to rush past him.

He straightened, with a quick movement toward her. She recoiled before
him, precipitately retreated, closed the door, shot the bolt, and
leaned, for faintness, against the wall. She expected each moment to
hear him tap. She neither heard a knock nor the sound of soft, departing
feet. He was still there! He was on guard! He had had good reason for
his terrible certainty! He had foreseen what her plan might be, and she
knew he would no more let her get past him down the hall than the
turnkey will let the wretched prisoner escape.

The last flicker of her courage died at that thought. All her fine
exultation was beaten out by the fact of the brute force outside her
door. She could not get to Kerr now. Cowering behind her door she could
only fancy him waiting for her in the rotunda while the moments
lengthened into hours, each moment distrusting her more.

XXII

CLARA'S MARKET

All night she sat awake huddled under her greatcoat in the chilly
darkness. She could not lie down, she could not close her eyes. At long
intervals she heard the tread of unshod feet along the hall, and then
she held her breath lest at her slightest stir they approach her door.
Why, since he wanted the sapphire, hadn't he tried to get it from her
when he had had her unawares, upon her threshold with the house asleep?
It began to seem to her as if he were waiting, as if he were forced to
wait, for some appointed moment. She knew if it were his moment it would
be hers, too, as long as she had the sapphire upon her. She recalled
fearfully the moment when she had crouched against the window with her
hand protecting the jewel, and Harry's hand grasping her wrist. He
would know well enough where to find it now. Oh, the restless
unconcealable thing! Where could she hide it?

She took the pear-shaped pouch that swung always before her on her long
gold chain. She had repudiated that hiding-place before, but now the
more obvious the better--now that both men supposed she carried the
jewel far hidden out of sight. Without moving from the bed where she was
crouched, cramped and cold, she made the exchange, leaving the chain
still around her neck, dropping the jewel into the pouch, where it would
swing free, so carelessly dangling as to be beyond suspicion, but never
beyond the reach of her hand.

It was a pale, splendid dawning full of clouds when she feel asleep.

Broad sunlight filled her room when she