Then methodically and more coolly she made a second search throughout the now lighted room. But nowhere could she find the package she needed. And, after all it _was_ too late! And in a sort of tidal wave of deluging apprehension, she suddenly understood what life from that hour forward was worth to her. She set to work to rearrange the chiffonier, inappositely and vacuously. She even did what she could to put the room once more in order. This accomplished, she took up her hot-water bottle, and still told herself that she must not give up. Then she seated herself in a little white-and-gold rocker, and waited, quietly blazing out through her jungle of danger each different narrow avenue of expediency. “Poor Jim!” she murmured, under her breath, with one dry sob. The hum of voices came to her from the hallway—the servants, obviously, had been awakened. She could hear the footsteps come to a stop without, and the shuffling of slippered feet on the hardwood floor. Then came the drone of excited whisperings, the creak and jar of the doors opening and closing. Then, remote and muffled and far-away, sounded the sharp ringing of a bell. Somebody out in the hallway gasped a relieved, “Thank heaven!” Frances looked at herself in the mirror, adjusting her hair, and taking note of the two little circles of scarlet that had deepened and spread across her feverish cheeks. Then she sat down once more, and swung the hot-water bottle from her forefinger, and waited. She heard the dull thud of the front door closing and a moment later the sound of quick footsteps on the stairs. She looked about the comfortable, rose-tinted room, with its gilded Louis clock, with its womanish signs and tokens, with its nest-like warmth and softness; she looked about her slowly and comprehensively, as though she had been taking her last view of life. Then she rose and went to the door, for the police had arrived. CHAPTER XIX Durkin was both puzzled and apprehensive. That a taxi should follow his own at eleven o’clock at night, for some twenty-odd blocks, was a singular enough coincidence. That it should stop when he stopped, that it should wait, not a square away, for him to come out of his _café_, and then shadow him home for another thirteen circuitous blocks, was more than a coincidence. It was a signal for the utmost discretion.