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was prompt to scramble to his feet. He found himself surrounded by a profound blackness. The place wherein he stood was like the very heart of night itself. But for the quick flutter of the breath of the woman who was near him, he was without an inkling as to where he might be.

But for the moment he was content to know that he was with her. He groped in the darkness with a tentative hand, which presently encountered the girl's, and closed upon it; and he started to speak, but she gave him pause.

"Hush, m'sieur!" she breathed. "Hush—and come with me quickly. You have not an instant to—" Her concluding word was drowned in the report of a pistol. The girl started, with a frightened cry. A roar of cursing filled the room which the O'Rourke, providentially, had just quitted. It subsided suddenly; and then the two heard the cool, incisive accents of Chambret.

"Not so fast, Monsieur le Prince," they heard him say, warningly. "Take it with more aplomb, I advise you. Upon my word of honor, you die if you move a finger within ten minutes!"

"And then—?" came the wrathful voice of Georges.

"Then," returned Chambret, delicately ironical, "I shall be pleased to leave you to your—devices—shall we call them? For my part, I shall go on my way in my automobile."