It would be useless to leave the signora now, with the idea of getting a proper warrant to search the cabinet, for even if the secret were to be solved, or the cabinet taken to pieces, she would burn the volume the moment she found herself alone. Had he listened to the promptings of the Evil One, he would have made excuses to himself, and left Lucia Guiscardini to her own devices, with liberty to destroy the evidence that would release Paul Desfrayne, but with sublime self-denial, he resolved to press on to the last. “Are you satisfied, sir?” asked Madam Guiscardini sneeringly, as she noticed his perplexed look on closing the last drawer. “Very nearly so,” he replied, moving his fingers nervously over the fine filigree work and gilded foliage down the sides of the cabinet. She dreaded that he would come upon the spring, and saw plainly that he was in search of it. With a rough hand she pushed him away, crying: “Enough, sir--enough! Allow me to close this cabinet, for it contains numberless articles of value, which----” But as she pushed Frank Amberley away, his hands touched the duplex spring, and what appeared to be two drawers slowly folded back, sliding in thin layers, one over another, while a fresh drawer was propelled forward in place of the two which disappeared. A scream from Lucia Guiscardini told the lawyer that he had discovered the object for which he sought. She caught at the filigree handle--it remained immovable. “Leave the house, sir! I will call my servants to fling you into the street!” screamed Madam Guiscardini, almost beside herself. The book once found, it would not only ruin her hopes with the prince, but would serve as terrible evidence against her if charged with the murder of the man Gilardoni. She had intended, Gilardoni agreeing to leave Europe, to make a bargain with Paul Desfrayne, by confessing to him that she had been already married at the time of her union with him, on condition that he took an oath never to betray her affairs to human ear, and never to seek her in any way whatever. “If you do not quit my house,” she exclaimed, trying to stand between Frank Amberley and the fatal drawer, “I will send for a policeman, and give you into custody on the charge of attempting to rifle these drawers.” The young man did not answer. There was no longer any doubt that the precious volume lay within a few inches of his hand. The confused memory of the secret spring grew more hazy--he was almost in despair. It seemed hard to be baffled at the moment when victory smiled. Quick as thought, he ran across to the fireplace, and caught up the bright steel poker lying in the fender. Before Lucia Guiscardini really knew what he meant to do, he had darted back, and with one adroit blow smashed in the front of the drawer.