A. E. W. Mason

“ For Adèle stood up, and, passing a cord round the upper part of her arms, drew her elbows back. To bring any strength to help her in wriggling her hands free she must be able to raise her elbows. With them trussed in the small of her back she was robbed entirely of her strength. And all the time her strange uneasiness grew. She made a movement of revolt, and at once the cord was loosened.
"Mlle. Célie objects to my tests," said Adèle, with a laugh, to Mme. Dauvray. "And I do not wonder."
Celia saw upon the old woman's foolish and excited face a look of veritable consternation. ”

“ He was already winding it up in a coil as it slid noiselessly across the polished floor beneath the curtains towards him. He had given a signal to Adèle Rossignol. All that woman's scepticism and precaution against trickery had been a mere blind, under cover of which she had been able to pack the girl away securely without arousing her suspicions. Hélène Vauquier was in the plot, too. The scarf at Celia's mouth was proof of that. As if to add proof to proof, she heard Adèle Rossignol speak in answer to the signal.
"Are we all ready? Have you got Mme. Dauvray's left hand, Hélène?" ”

“ She would have had an easy task that night had there been men instead of women to put her to the test. But the women were intent upon their own ends: Mme. Dauvray eager for her séance, Adèle Tacé and Hélène Vauquier for the climax of their plot.
Celia clenched her hands to make the muscles of her wrists rigid to resist the pressure of the cord. Adèle quietly unclasped them and placed them palm to palm. And at once Celia became uneasy. It was not merely the action, significant though it was of Adèle's alertness to thwart her, which troubled Celia. ”

“ The argument silenced Celia. If she refused this condition now she would excite Mme. Dauvray to a terrible suspicion. She drew on her gloves ruefully and slowly, smoothed them over her elbows, and buttoned them. To free her hands with her fingers and wrists already hampered in gloves would not be so easy a task. ”

“ If she had had the courage to tell him yesterday, he would have forgiven, surely he would! The tears gathered in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. What would become of her now? She was in pain besides. The cords about her arms and ankles tortured her. ”

“ Hélène Vauquier locked the door of the salon upon the inside and placed the key upon the mantel-shelf, as she had always done whenever a séance had been held. The curtains had been loosened at the sides of the arched recess in front of the glass doors, ready to be drawn across. Inside the recess, against one of the pillars which supported the arch, a high stool without a back, taken from the hall, had been placed, and the back legs of the stool had been lashed with cord firmly to the pillar, so that it could not be moved. ”

“ Dauvray's happiness, so much of her own, hung upon its success. Let her fail to-night, she would be surely turned from the door. The story of her trickery and her exposure would run through Aix. And she had not told Harry! It would reach his ears from others. He would never forgive her. To face the old, difficult life of poverty and perhaps starvation again, and again alone, would be hard enough ”