"Then it is now afternoon. By and by, when the watch tells us it is nightfall, I will creep up the steps and listen for sounds in the hall. When I hear them go away, it will be the signal for us to open the secret door and escape," she said. At eight o'clock, with her ear pressed against the secret paneled door, she heard mistress and maid going through the hall to the front door. It opened and shut. Marie heard distinctly the loud click of the key in the lock outside. They had gone, leaving their victim to perish, as they thought, by the slow pangs of starvation. Van Zandt was close by her side; she turned to him eagerly. "I have been feeling the door in the dark for a knob like that on the outside, but I can not find it," she said. "The surface seems perfectly smooth, not carved as on the outside. Will you bring the lamp, monsieur, and let us search for it?" With a sinking heart, he obeyed her request, detaching the swinging-lamp from its bronze frame and taking it up the dark stair-way in his hand. Even then, in his eager anxiety, his artistic eye took note of the gleam of the light on the girl's picturesque masses of red-gold hair, as it waved in silken luxuriance over her shoulders. CHAPTER XX. Marie did not see Van Zandt's eyes looking admiringly at her beautiful hair. She was gazing with eager eyes at the narrow door that had shut her in with him whom she had dared so much to find and save. She saw with some dismay that its inner surface was just what it had appeared when she had moved her fingers over it in the dark--perfectly smooth, without seam, knob, or lock, and no apparent way of moving it from its place. Van Zandt gave her the lamp to hold, and put his shoulder to the immovable door, but his whole strength availed nothing against its grim solidity. Then he spent an anxious hour trying the steps and the sides of the door in an effort to find its mysterious open sesame. Not an iota of success rewarded his frantic efforts. But he would not give way to despair. "I shall have to cut our way out," he said. "But, as I have no hatchet, it will be slow work with my jack-knife. You may have to hold that lamp for hours, ma'amselle, while I whittle a hole in the door big enough for you to creep through." "That is nothing. I shall not be tired," she replied, bravely. But she was not called upon for this exhibition of patience. The first few strokes of the knife revealed to him the appalling fact that the inside of the door was not of wood, but iron--iron so heavily coated with thick paint that it had cleverly deceived the superficial touch. Then indeed she caught a gleam of trouble in his eyes--trouble that was almost despair. Her own face paled, and a sigh of dismay escaped her lips. When he heard it, he forced a smile. "Do not be frightened; we will find some other way," he said.