CHAPTER XIII.
Tangled meshes.
Juliette waited a moment or two, until the footsteps of the six men died away up the massive oak stairs.
For the first time, since the sword of Damocles had fallen, she was alone with her thoughts.
She had but a few moments at her command in which to devise an issue out of these tangled meshes, which she had woven round the man she loved.
Merlin and his men would return anon.

The comedy could not be kept up through another visit from them, and while the compromising letter-case remained in Deroulede's private study he was in imminent danger at the hands of his enemy.
She thought for a moment of concealing the case about her person, but a second's reflection showed her the futility of such a move.

She had not seen the papers themselves; any one of them might be an absolute proof of Deroulede's guilt; the correspondence might be in his handwriting.
If Merlin, furious, baffled, vicious, were to order her to be searched! The horror of the indignity made her shudder, but she would have submitted to that, if thereby she could have saved Deroulede.

But of this she could not be sure until after she had looked through the papers, and this she had not the time to do.
Her first and greatest idea was to get out of this room, his private study, with the compromising papers.

Not a trace of them must be found here, if he were to remain beyond suspicion.
She rose from the sofa, and peeped through the door.