g the box of mysteries. “One would think—”

She broke off short to stand on tiptoe like a bird poised for flight. Had she caught a sound from without, a shuffling of soft-padded feet on the stairs? Ah, yes. There! A board creaked.

Snapping off the light, she stood in the darkness, tense, alert, listening intently.

“That box!” Her thoughts were in a tumult. “Why do they want more? They have the best.

“Shall I throw open the door and thrust the box at them?

“Ah, no, I shall not do that. Mystery, how one yearns for it! And yet how one dreads it! This box, it is ours. We have bought it. We will fight for it. I will call Florence. She will throw them down the stairs.

“But no! She is weary. They may have the knife. The lock is strong. Let them spy upon us if they must.”

Jeanne was by nature a child of the night. To sit there in the dark, to think and think, to wait and wait for that which in the end did not come, was no hardship for her.

The first faint gray light of dawn was creeping upon the towers of that magic city on the shores of Lake Michigan when at last she parted the curtains to look away at the land and the black waters that lay beyond.

“Bon jour, sweet world!” she murmured. “Now we have a new day. And to-night I shall go out alone to seek adventure.”

At that she shoved her pink toes beneath covers of silk filled with eiderdown and slept the sleep of perfect peace, while out there by the shores of Lake Michigan fifty thousand happy people romped through the sunshine of a bright summer’s day.

CHAPTER IV
THE GOLDEN TEMPLE

Why did Petite Jeanne sleep all day to haunt strange places