"I know it by heart.

I only wished to know where it was." "Very well; it is here," said Matilde, putting it back and locking the drawer again.

"I generally carry the key about with me," she added carelessly, "but I have no pocket in this gown, so I laid it behind that photograph.

It is not a very good place for it, is it ?" She hesitated, holding the key in her hand, and looking about the room while he watched her.

The woman's enormous power of deception showed itself in the spontaneous facility with which she went through a complicated little scene, quite improvised, in order to mislead her husband.