"And if they recognize, but are helpless?"
Stuart made a gesture of impatience.
"You are simply seeking to enlist my sympathy," he said bitterly. "But you have said nothing which inclines me to listen to you any longer. Apart from the shock of finding you to be—what you are, I am utterly mystified as to your object. I am a poor man. The entire contents of my house would fetch only a few hundred pounds if sold to-morrow. Yet you risk your liberty to rifle my bureau. For the last time—what have you taken from that drawer?"
She leaned back against the table, toying with the broken piece of gold and glancing down at it as she did so. Her long lashes cast shadows below her eyes, and a hint of colour was returning to her cheeks. Stuart studied her attentively—even delightedly, for all her shortcomings, and knew in his heart that he could never give her in charge of the police. More and more the wonder of it all grew upon him, and now he suddenly found himself thinking of the unexplained incident of the previous night.
"You do not answer," he said. "I will ask you another question: have you attempted to open that drawer prior to this evening?"
Mlle. Dorian looked up rapidly, and her cheeks, which had been pale, now flushed rosily.
"I try twice before," she confessed, "and cannot open it."
"Ah! And—has someone else tried also?"
Instantly her colour fled again, and she stared at him wide-eyed, fearful.
"Someone else?" she whispered.