Margot flung aside her cigarette and jumped up, the song and the laughter came to an abrupt end, the door flew open, and with a shout and a cheer a man bounced into the room.
"Serpice! Ah, _le bon Dieu!_ it is Serpice at last!" cried out Margot in joyous excitement, as she and the others crowded round him.

"Soul of a sluggard, don't waste time in laughing and capering like this! Speak up, speak up, you hear?
Are we to fly at once to the mill and join him?
Has he succeeded?
Is it done ?" "Yes, yes, yes!" shouted back Serpice, throwing up his cap and capering.
"It is done! It is done! Under the very nose of the cracksman, too! Merode's got them--got them both! The little lordship and the Mademoiselle Lorne, too! They took the bait like gudgeons; they stepped into the automobile without a fear, and--whizz! it was off to the mill like that! La, la, la! We win, we win, we win!" The shock of the thing was too much for Cleek.

Carried out of himself by the knowledge that the woman he loved was now in peril of her life, discretion forsook him, blind rage mastered him, and he did one of the few foolish things of his life.
"You lie, you brute--you lie!" he shouted, jumping up into full view.
"God help the man who lays a hand on her! Let him keep his life from me if he can!" "The cracksman!" yelled out Serpice.

"The cracksman! The cracksman!" echoed Margot and the rest.

Then a pistol barked and spat, the light was swept out, a bullet sang past Cleek's ear, and he realised how foolish he had been.