Left to my own resources, I found it no easy matter to invent a telegraphic system which should sufficiently inform Benjamin, without awakening Dexter’s quick suspicion. I looked into the glass to see if I could find the necessary suggestion in anything that I wore. My earrings supplied me with the idea of which I was in search. “I shall take care to sit in an arm-chair,” I said. “When you see me rest my elbow on the chair, and lift my hand to my earring, as if I were playing with it--write down what he says; and go on until--well, suppose we say, until you hear me move my chair. At that sound, stop. You understand me?” “I understand you.” We started for Dexter’s house. CHAPTER XL. NEMESIS AT LAST. THE gardener opened the gate to us on this occasion. He had evidently received his orders in anticipation of my arrival. “Mrs. Valeria?” he asked. “Yes.” “And friend?” “And friend.” “Please to step upstairs. You know the house.” Crossing the hall, I stopped for a moment, and looked at a favorite walking-cane which Benjamin still kept in his hand. “Your cane will only be in your way,” I said. “Had you not better leave it here?” “My cane may be useful upstairs,” retorted Benjamin, gruffly. “_I_ haven’t forgotten what happened in the library.” It was no time to contend with him. I led the way up the stairs. Arriving at the upper flight of steps, I was startled by hearing a sudden cry from the room above. It was like the cry of a person in pain; and it was twice repeated before we entered the circular antechamber. I was the first to approach the inner room, and to see the many-sided Miserrimus Dexter in another new aspect of his character. The unfortunate Ariel was standing before a table, with a dish of little cakes placed in front of her. Round each of her wrists was tied a string, the free ends of which (at a distance of a few yards) were held in Miserrimus Dexter’s hands. “Try again, my beauty!” I heard him say, as I stopped on the threshold of the door. “Take a cake.” At the word of command, Ariel submissively stretched out one arm toward the dish. Just as she touched a cake with the tips of her fingers her hand was jerked away by a pull at the string, so savagely cruel in the nimble and devilish violence of it that I felt inclined to snatch Benjamin’s cane out of his hand and break it over Miserrimus Dexter’s back. Ariel suffered the pain this time in Spartan silence. The position in which she stood enabled her to be the first to see me at the door. She had discovered me. Her teeth were set; her face was flushed under the struggle to restrain herself. Not even a sigh escaped her in my presence. “Drop the string!” I called out, indignantly “Release her, Mr. Dexter, or I shall leave the house.” At the sound of my voice he burst out with a shrill cry of welcome. His eyes fastened on me with a fierce, devouring delight.