Eagle took my advice, handing me the coat to keep for him as he passed on his way to the door. There was plenty of room to stand behind the screen without flattening myself against the wall. And without danger of being seen I could look through the interstices between the leaves of the screen into the brightly lighted room. I heard Eagle's footsteps on the parquet floor of the vestibule. I heard the click of the latch as he opened the door. After that, instead of a loud, jolly greeting from his friend, there was dead silence for an instant. Then a woman's voice spoke in a low tone of intense and passionate eagerness. I had never heard it speak in that tone before. But with a shock of surprise and fear, I recognized the voice: it was Diana's. CHAPTER XXV My heart stood still. Thinking calmly, it seemed that Diana had no power to harm Eagle March. I had the coat which betrayed Sidney. Eagle had the written message, and his friend in America had the notebook out of which it had been torn. The chain of our evidence was complete. It could not be broken. Eagle had long ago seen through Diana and ceased to worship her. Surely she could do nothing with him now, no matter how shamefully she might humble herself. But I could not think calmly. And as I heard her sweet, imploring voice, begging to come in, as I realized that Eagle could not shut her out, a heavy presentiment of failure weighed upon me. I braced myself to be ready for anything that might happen, ready to spring from behind the screen and confront Diana if need came. "If you ever cared for me, if you have any pity for an unhappy woman, let me in--let me speak to you," were the words I heard her say, in a voice like the wail of harp-strings. Its pathos would have been irresistible to any man, even if he had never loved her. Eagle March let Diana come in, though I heard him protesting that his friend Jim White might arrive at any moment. "What does it matter?" she cried; and with the words she was at the study door. Through the leaves of the tall screen I saw her trail in, a figure of beauty in her white satin dress and sombre purple cloak, her dark hair wreathed with a fillet of emerald laurel leaves that gave her face the look of some tragic muse of long ago. "I know Jim White," she hurried on, "and he knows me well enough to be sure I'm here for nothing wrong! I'm not afraid of him. It's you I'm afraid of, Eagle!" She stopped, and faced him. Unknowingly she faced me, too. Eagle's back was turned toward me, but I could see Diana's blue eyes gazing up at him. They were sad and beautiful beyond words. With a shiver of fear, I realized that no woman on earth could be lovelier than my sister. All womanhood, with its appeal to man, was in her great imploring eyes. I was glad that Eagle did not answer. I hoped his silence might mean that her beauty had lost its magic for him, that he understood fully how she had come to beguile him, and that he meant to give her no opening.