"Never!"

"Yes, you will speak. Not now; it's too late. But to-night." He bent down over him and, whispering in his ear, said, "Listen, Altenheim, and understand what I say. You'll be caught presently. To-night, you'll sleep at the Depot. That is fatal, irrevocable. I myself can do nothing to prevent it now. And, to-morrow, they will take you to the Sante; and later, you know where... . Well, I'm giving you one more chance of safety. To-night, you understand, I shall come to your cell, at the Depot, and you shall tell me where Genevieve is. Two hours later, if you have told the truth, you shall be free. If not ... it means that you don't attach much value to your head."

The other made no reply. Sernine stood up and listened. There was a great crash overhead. The entrance-door yielded. Footsteps beat the flags of the hall and the floor of the drawing room. M. Weber and his men were searching.

"Good-bye, baron. Think it over until this evening. The prison-cell is a good counsellor."

He pushed his prisoner aside, so as to uncover the trap-door, and lifted it. As he expected, there was no longer any one below on the steps of the staircase.

He went down, taking care to leave the trap-door open behind him, as though he meant to come back.

There were twenty steps, at the bottom of which began the passage through which M. Lenormand and Gourel had come in the opposite direction. He entered it and gave an exclamation. He thought he felt somebody's presence there.

He lit his pocket-lantern. The passage was empty.

Then he cocked his revolver and said aloud:

"All right... . I'm going to fire."

No reply. Not a sound.

"It's an illusion, no doubt," he thought. "That creature is becoming an obsession... . Come, if I want to pull off my stroke and win the game, I must hurry... . The hole in which I hid the parcel of clothes is not far off. I shall take the parcel ... and the trick is done... . And what a trick! One of Lupin's best! ..."

He came to a door that stood open and at once stopped. To the right was an excavation, the one which M. Lenormand had made to escape from the rising water. He stooped and threw his light into the opening:

"Oh!" he said, with a start. "No, it's not possible ... Doudeville must have pushed the parcel farther along."

But, search and pry into the darkness as he might, the parcel was gone; and he had no doubt but that it was once more the mysterious being who had taken it.

"What a pity! The thing was so neatly arranged! The adventure would have resumed its natural course, and I should have achieved my aim with greater certainty... . As it is, I must push along as fast as I can.

... Doudeville is at the Pavillon Hortense... . My retreat is insured... . No more nonsense... . I must hurry and set things straight again, if I can... . And we'll attend to 'him' afterward.

... Oh, he'd better keep clear of my claws, that one!"

But an exclamation of stupor escaped his lips; he had come to the other door; and this door, the last before the garden-house, was shut. He flung himself upon it. What was the good? What could he do?

"This time," he muttered, "I'm badly done!"

And, seized with a sort of lassitude, he sat down. He had a sense of his weakness in the face of the mysterious being. Altenheim hardly counted.

But the other, that person of darkness and silence, the other loomed up before him, upset all his plans and exhausted him with his cunning and infernal attacks.

He was beaten.

Weber would find him there, like an animal run to earth, at the bottom of his cave.

"Ah, no!" he cried, springing up with a bound. "No! If there were only myself, well and good! ... But there is Genevieve, Genevieve, who must be saved to-night... . After all, the game is not yet lost... . If the other one vanished just now, it proves that there is a second outlet somewhere near... . Come, come, Weber and his merry men haven't got me yet... ."

He had already begun to explore the tunnel and, lantern in hand, was examining the bricks of which the horrible walls were formed, when a yell reached his ears, a dreadful yell that made his flesh creep with anguish.

It came from the direction of the trap-door. And he suddenly remembered that he had left the trap-door open, at the time when he intended to return to the Villa des Glycines.

He hurried back and passed through the first door. His lantern went out on the road; and he felt something, or rather somebody, brush past his knees, somebody crawl along the wall. And, at that same moment, he had a feeling that this being was disappearing, vanishing, he knew not which way.

Just then his foot knocked against a step.

"This is the outlet," he thought, "the second outlet through which 'he'

passes."

Overhead, the cry sounded again, less loud, followed by moans, by a hoarse gurgling... .

He ran up the stairs, came out in the basement room, and rushed to the baron.

Altenheim lay dying, with the blood streaming from his throat! His bonds were cut, but the wire that fastened his wrists and ankles was intact.

_His accomplice, being unable to release him, had cut his throat._

Sernine gazed upon the sight with horror. An icy perspiration covered his whole body. He thought of Genevieve, imprisoned, helpless, abandoned to the most awful of deaths, because the baron alone knew where she was hidden.

He distinctly heard the policemen open the little back door in the hall.

He distinctly heard them come down the kitchen stairs.

There was nothing between him and them save one door, that of the basement room in which he was. He bolted the door at the very moment when the aggressors were laying hold of the handle.

The trap-door was open beside him; it meant possible safety, because there remained the second outlet.

"No," he said to himself, "Genevieve first. Afterward, if I have time, I will think of myself."

He knelt down and put his hand on the baron's breast. The heart was still beating.

He stooped lower still:

"You can hear me, can't you?"

The eyelids flickered feebly.

The dying man was just breathing. Was there anything to be obtained from this faint semblance of life?

The policemen were attacking the door, the last rampart.

Sernine whispered.

"I will save you... . I have infallible remedies... . One word only ... Genevieve? ..."

It was as though this word of hope revived the man's strength. Altenheim tried to utter articulate sounds.

"Answer," said Sernine, persisting. "Answer, and I will save you... .

Answer... . It means your life to-day ... your liberty to-morrow.

... Answer! ..."

The door shook under the blows that rained upon it.