which had first met her eye in Paris. This branding—it seemed to be an obsession with him.
But she heard his deep voice calling to her from the study and presently he was standing in the doorway leading from that room to the living-room. "Please come in where we shall not be disturbed," he invited not without significance, and somehow she felt that he had guessed the object of her mission.
He motioned her to a seat in the study but she was too nervous to accept. Her eyes swept the room as she struggled to formulate her request. He stood beside the desk toying with an ivory paper cutter. The drawer of the desk was open a little and she caught the glint of a metal object in the corner nearest her, a revolver. He followed her eyes and, without seeming to be conscious of any connection between her gaze and his action, casually closed the drawer. A large circular bowl made of dull metal standing upon the table was sending up a thin column of smoke and she was conscious of an irritating little scent in the room. Beside the bowl rested the disk bearing the Bengal tiger seal, still hot, and the ivory jewel box he had been branding.
"What has brought you here so very early in the morning, Carmelita?" he asked.
She moistened her dry lips. There was no
