Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/297

 hind the woman of the night was a small glass, set into the wall: an old and tarnished mirror, which, nevertheless, had sufficient reflecting power to be of service.

Into it, then, from time to time, the man had been casting furtive glances with a care that mam'selle should not observe him.

The precaution had proven of great value; at the precise moment when the woman, herself with head lowered, had choked with tears, well-nigh, in the fulness of her emotion, O'Rourke heard a creak not thirty feet away—or so he could have sworn.

And then, while she groped in the maze of her thoughts, for the words she desired, he saw the portière cautiously lifted to one side.

In the dark entry thus exposed stood the figure of a man;, and that man he whom O'Rourke had most of all, just then, to fear—Prince Vladislaus Viazma.

He stood quietly regarding them, an attentive smile upon, his face showing that he had not overheard what had passed between the two. There was an element of gratification in his expression that would not have been there had he dreamed that mam'selle had failed in subjugating the Irishman.

The prince was plainly prepared for such a failure, however; his arms were folded, the left above the right, and in the hollow of the left elbow rested the muzzle of a revolver, its body and the hand that held it being concealed by the folds of the sleeve.

From where the Russian stood he could, without moving, send a bullet into O'Rourke,—a tormenting contingency to the Irishman.

He—the prince—remained perfectly quiet while the woman did; but when she had ended her murmured confes-