All the time I was on my knees, my attention divided between the inside of the room and the stray sounds which now and then came up to me from the hall below.

'Have you the key ?' 'No; we are locked in,' mademoiselle answered.
I expected this.

'If the door is bolted inside,' I whispered, 'unfasten it, if you please!' They answered that it was not, so bidding them stand back a little from it, I rose and set my shoulder against it.

I hoped to be able to burst it in with only one crash, which by itself, a single sound, might not alarm the men downstairs.

But my weight made no impression upon the lock, and the opposite wall being too far distant to allow me to get any purchase for my feet, I presently desisted.