Once, when the gendarmes were peering under the sofa, or behind the sofa cushions, a grey shadow round Maxine's eyes made her beautiful face look like a death-mask in the white electric light, which did not fail now, or spare her any cruelty of revelation.

She was smiling contemptuously still--always the same smile--but her forehead appeared to have been sprinkled with diamond dust.
I saw that dewy sparkle, and wondered, sickeningly, if the enemy saw it too.

But I had not long to wait before being satisfied on this point.
The keen-eyed Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled subordinates, but crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it fixedly.

Then, grasping the back with his capable-looking hand, instead of beginning at once a quest which his gendarmes had abandoned, he searched the face of the tortured woman.
Unflinching in courage, she seemed not to see him.

But it was as if she had suddenly ceased to breathe.