She heard nothing. She saw nothing. Whatever the place it was as black as pitch.
She now recalled the mysterious goings and comings of the friends of Monsieur de Beauchamp,—the disappearance of half a dozen at a time,—the peculiar noises heard from her side of the closet.
"Truly, this is the back shop of Monsieur de Beauchamp," said she, as she stumbled upon a box. "If I only had a candle or a match."
She felt the box, which was almost square, and was so heavy she could scarcely raise one end of it.
She groped along the wall, where similar boxes were piled up, and began to wonder what on earth Monsieur de Beauchamp had stored there in his back shop.
A startling suggestion stole into her mind,—perhaps it was——
She hastily sought the door by which she had entered, and in her excitement she stumbled against it.
The door closed with a snap.
Mlle. Fouchette was not afraid of being alone in the dark, yet she trembled nervously from head to foot.
She knew that the key was on the inside!