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 standing with the pistol in one hand and the yellow backed in the other.

Outside on the snow covered piazza stood a half dozen men in the uniforms of the constabulary. At the apparition of the beautiful woman in the doorway they remained for an instant silent, startled.

"What is it you want?" she asked.

One of the men, a burly fellow with a brutal jaw stepped forward. "We want to search the house. We're looking for a man."

"What man?" asked Lily.

"Never mind," came the gruff answer. "You wouldn't know him. He's nothing to you. His name is Krylenko."

"There's no one in the house but me and the servants." Her voice trembled a little before the menacing group on the piazza.

"That's all right," said the man. "We're going to see for ourselves. We saw him come in here."

He began to edge his way slowly toward the open door and as he moved the pearl handled pistol raised slowly, menacingly, in an even tempo with his slow insolent advance.

"You cannot come in," said Lily in a slow, firm voice. The pistol was level now with the heart of the intruder. "I've told you there is no one here. You might, it seems to me, take the word of a lady. I've been here all the evening and I would know. . . ." She raised the yellow backed novel in a brief little gesture. "I've been reading. There is no one here but myself."

The man growled. "That's all right but we want to look for ourselves." There was a painful pause. "We're going to have a look," he added with determination.

When Lily spoke again there was a new note in her voice, a sudden timbre of determination, a hint of unreasonable, angry, feminine stubborness which appeared to awe the intruder.

"Oh, no, you're not," she said. "It is my house. You have no right to enter it. You have no warrant. It is mine. You cannot enter it." And then, as if by an afterthought she added, "Even my sister is not here. I don't know this Krylenko. I never saw him."