Her gaze searched the area where the lamplight fell soft yet strong upon the dark shining wood and heavy brass desk fittings; and paused, arrested by the unusual combination of inverted bowl and super-imposed book. A riddle to be read with facility; in a twinkling she had uncovered the incriminating hand-print--incriminating if it could be traced, that is to say.

"Oh!" she cried softly. And laughed a little. "Oh, how careless!"

Fine brows puckered, she pondered the matter, and ended by placing her own hand over the print; this one fitted the other exactly.

"How he must have wondered! He is sure to look again, especially if...."

No need to conclude the sentence. Quickly she placed bag and case squarely on top of the impression, the bowl over all, and the book upon the bowl; then, drawing from her pocket a pair of long grey silk gloves, draped one across the book; and, head tilted to one side, admired the effect.

It seemed decidedly an artistic effect, admirably calculated to attract attention. She was satisfied to the point of being pleased with herself: a fact indicated by an expressive flutter of slim, fair hands.... And now, to work! Time pressed, and.... A cloud dimmed the radiance of her eyes; irresolutely she shifted in her chair, troubled, frowning, lips woefully drooping. And sighed. And a still small whisper, broken and wretched, disturbed the quiet of the study.

"I can not! O, I can not!... To spoil it all, _now_, when...."

Yet she must. She must forget herself and steel her determination with the memory that another's happiness hung in the balance, depended upon her success. Twice she had tried and failed. This third time she _must_ succeed.

And bowing her head in token of her resignation, she turned back squarely to face the desk. As she did so the toe of one small shoe caught against something on the floor, causing a dull jingling sound.

She stooped, with a low exclamation, and straightened up, a small bunch of keys in her hand: eight or ten of them dangling from a silver ring: Maitland's keys.

He must have dropped them there, forgetting them altogether. A find of value and one to save her a deal of trouble: skeleton keys are so exasperatingly slow, particularly when used by inexpert hands. But how to bring herself to make use of these? All's fair in war (and this was a sort of war, a war of wits at least); but one should fight with one's own arms, not pilfer the enemy's and turn them against him. To use these keys to ransack Maitland's desk seemed an action even more blackly dishonorable than this clandestine visit, this midnight foray.

Swinging the notched metal slips from a slender finger, she contemplated them: and laughed ruefully. What qualms of conscience in a burglar self-confessed! She was there for a purpose, a recognized, nefarious purpose. Granted. Then why quibble?... She would not quibble.

She would be firm, resolute, determined, cold-blooded, unmindful of all kindness and courtesy and.... She would use them, accomplish her purpose, and have done, finally and for ever, with the whole hateful business!

There was a bright spot of color on either cheek and a hot light of anger in her eyes as she set about her task. It would never be less hideous, never less immediate.

The desk drawers yielded easily to the eager keys. One by one she had them open and their contents explored--vain repetition of yesterday afternoon's fruitless task. But she must be sure, she must leave no stone unturned. Maitland Manor was closed to her for ever, because of last night. But here she was safe for a few short hours, and free to make assurance doubly sure.

There remained the despatch-box, the black japanned tin box which had proved obdurate yesterday. She had come prepared to break its lock this time, if need be; Maitland's carelessness spared her the necessity.

She lifted it out of a lower drawer, and put it in her lap. The smallest key fitted the lock at the first attempt. The lid came up and....

Perhaps it is not altogether discreditable that one should temporarily forget one's compunctions in the long-deferred moment of triumph. The girl uttered a little cry of joy.

Crash!--the front door down-stairs had been slammed.

She was on her feet in a breath, faint with fear. Yet not so overcome that she forgot her errand, her success. As she stood up she dropped the despatch-box back into the drawer, without a sound, and, opening her hand-bag, stuffed something into it.

No time to do more: a dull rumble of masculine voices was distinctly, frightfully audible in the stillness of the house: voices of men conversing together in the inner vestibule. One laughed, and the laugh seemed to penetrate her bosom like a knife. Then both strode across the tiling and began to ascend, as was clearly told her by footsteps sounding deadened on the padded carpet.

Panic-stricken, she turned to the student lamp and with a quick twirl and upward jerk of the chimney-catch extinguished the flame. A reek of smoke immediately began to foul the close, hot air: and she knew that it would betray her, but was helpless to stop it. Besides, she was caught, trapped, damned beyond redemption unless ... unless it were not Maitland, after all, but one of the other tenants, unexpectedly returned and bound for another flat.

Futile hope. Upon the landing by the door the footsteps ceased; and a key grated in the wards of the lock.

Blind with terror, her sole thought an instinctive impulse to hide and so avert discovery until the last possible instant, on the bare chance of something happening to save her, the girl caught up her skirts and fled like a hunted shadow through the alcove, through the bed-chamber, thence down the hall toward the dining-room and kitchen offices.

The outer door was being opened ere she had reached the hiding-place she had in mind: the trunk-closet, from which, she remembered remarking, a window opened upon a fire-escape. It was barely possible, a fighting chance.

She closed the door, grateful that its latch slipped silently into place, and fairly flung herself upon the window, painfully bruising her soft hands in vain endeavor to raise the sash. It stuck obstinately, would not yield. Too late, she remembered that she had forgotten to draw the catch--fatal oversight! A sob of terror choked in her throat.

Already footsteps were hurrying down the hall; a line of light brightened underneath the door; voices, excitedly keyed, bandied question and comment, an unmistakable Irish brogue mingling with a clear enunciation which she had but too great reason to remember. The pair had passed into the next room. She could hear O'Hagan announcing: "No wan here, sor."

"Then it's the dining-room, or the trunk-closet. Come along!"

One last, frantic attempt! But the window catch, rusted with long disuse, stuck. Panting, sick with fear, the girl leaped away and crushed herself into a corner, crouching on the floor behind a heavy box, her dark cloak drawn up to shield her head.

And the door opened.

A flood of radiance from the relighted student lamp fell athwart the floor. The girl lay close and still, holding her breath.

Ten seconds, perhaps, ticked on into Eternity: seconds that were in themselves eternities. Then: "No one here, O'Hagan."

The door was closed, and through its panels more faintly came: "Faith, and the murdhering divvle must've flew th' coop afore ye come in, sor."

The girl tried to rise, to make again for the window; but it was as though her limbs had turned to water; there was no strength in her; and the blackness swam visibly before her eyes, radiating away in whirling, streaky circles.

Even such resolution and strong will as was hers could not prevail against that numbing, deathly exhaustion. Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the wall.

It seemed but an instant (though it was in point of fact a full five minutes) ere the sound of a voice again roused her.

She looked up, dazzled by a gush of warm light.

He stood in the doorway, holding the lamp high above his head, his face pale, grave, and shadowed as he peered down at her.

"I have sent O'Hagan away," he said gently. "If you will please to come, now----"

IX

PROCRASTINATION

The cab which picked Maitland up at his lodgings carried him but a few blocks to the club at which he had, the previous evening, entertained his lawyer. Maitland had selected it as the one of all the clubs of which he and Bannerman were members, wherein he was least likely to meet the latter. Neither frequented its sober precincts by habit. Its severe and classical building on a corner of Madison Avenue overlooking the Square, is but the outward presentment of an institution to be a member of which is a duty, but emphatically no great pleasure, to the sons of a New York family of any prominence.

But in its management the younger generation holds no suffrage; and is not slow to declare that the Primordial is rightly named, characterizing the individual members of the Board of Governors as antediluvians, prehistoric monsters who have never learned that laughter lends a savor to existence. And so it is that the younger generation, (which is understood to include Maitland and Bannerman), while it religiously pays its dues and has the name of the Primordial engraved upon its cards, shuns those deadly respectable rooms and seeks its comfort elsewhere.

Maitland found it dull and depressing enough, that same evening, something before seven. The spacious and impressive lounging-rooms were but sparsely tenanted, other than by the ennuied corps of servants; and the few members who had lent the open doors the excuse of their presence were of the elderly type that hides itself behind a newspaper in an easy chair and snorts when addressed.

The young man strolled disconsolately enough into the billiard-room, thence (dogged by a specter of loneliness) to the bar, and finally, in sheer desperation, to the dining-room, where he selected a table and ordered an evening paper with his meal.

When the former was brought him, he sat up and began to take a new interest in life. The glaring head-lines that met his eye on the front page proved as bracing as a slap in the face.

"'The Maitland Jewels,'" he read, half aloud: "'Daring Attempt at Burglary. "Mad" Maitland Catches "Handsome Dan" Anisty in the Act of Cracking His Safe at Maitland Manor. Which was Which? Both Principals Disappear.'"

A dull red glow suffused the reader's countenance; he compressed his lips, only opening them once, and then to emit a monosyllabic oath, which can hardly have proved any considerable relief to his surcharged emotional nature.

The news-story was exploited as a "beat"; it could have been little else, since nine-tenths of its "exclusive details" had been born full-winged from the fecund imagination of a busy reporter to whom Maitland had refused an interview while in his bath, some three hours earlier. Maitland discovered with relief that boiled down to essentials it consisted simply of the statement that somebody (presumably himself) had caught somebody (presumably Anisty) burglarizing the library safe at Maitland Manor that morning: that one of the somebodies (no one knew which) had overpowered the other and left him in charge of the butler, who had presently permitted his prisoner to escape and then talked for publication.