Year: 1874

and tasting some Of our humiliation.
| Besides the three masked men who
/ had mastered me and brought me down.
/ there were five others in the dining.
room. Two were left as sentinels ovel


US, and the rest at once fell to work in
a way that meant business. A small
active man naotioned toward the side


board. It was wheeled aside, and, step
ping forward, he pressed the sliding
panel and disclosed the clsset where
the silver IN daily use was kept, and the
shelves were at once stripped and the
contents piled on the table.


The bedrooms upstairs were next
visited, the locks of drawers and ward
robes wrenched apart, and the contents
thrown pell-men on the floor for the
chief expert to decide on what should
be carried off. The upper rooms gut
ted, they came down with their spoils,
which they piled high before our ewes
on the table, and then. leaving us again
alone with our sentinels, they went
through the entry into my library.


It was a dark hour. / leaned back
my head and closed my eyes, and felt
that fate was cruel to me. Only one con-
ISOLATION llumined the blackness Of de-
spair-my wife had carried her jewels TO
town with her, and was spared the hu-
initiation of telling her I had lost them
for her through my idiotic faith in
Belts. There was long silence now,
which was followed by three muffled ex-
plOsions that shook the house like an
earthquake, and almost simultaneously
was heard the noise of a scuffle, and
opened my eyes to see the room filed
with policemen, and hear pistol shots
exchanged, while our two sentinels we're
thrown down, disarmed, and pinioned
before my eyes.


In less tims than it takes me to de-
scribe it the situation had been reversed,
and now Belts, the detective, appeared
in the door at the head of his posse of
men, no brought in eight of the cap
tured burglars, two of them wounded
and bleeding profusely, while the rest
showed signs of having maintained a
stout resistance all had lost their
masks In the melee, and disclosed sui
len and brutal visages.


''How are you, Mr.. Powers p inquir-
ed Belts, coming forward and releasing
me. hope you're not hurt. I beg
your pardon for taking possession of
your house in this way


Why did you make me think was
safe for tonight, Belts ?"


g Because, " he replied with a shrug,
p" discovered you were Just little up
set at the prospect, am felt afraid of
you. He ran his eye over the group
beside me, and when he saw johnson ne
grinned, and gong up to him knocked
his manaeles off. You're a pretty de
tective, you are" said he. ''to be caught
and tied up by the very fellows you
were in waiting for %


Belts" I gasped suddenly, 'you
haven't got the little one"


He gave a tigerish cry, and glared
from one to the other of his prisoners.


g You are sure there was another?"


I" No doubt of it, I returned any
one of these fellows is four inches taller
than the leader of the gang"


In another moment he had set picked
men at work searching both house and
grounds; but he never succeeded in
finding even a trace of the eleventh of
the party of burglar Not even after
the conviction and heavy sentence of
the other ten would any one of them
confess the secret of their leadership.
I had easily identified M. and Madame
De Sturges-both swarthy and robust
Frenchmen-amongt them, but in spite
of all my efforts neither one could be
induced even 10 acknowledge they had
ever heard of such person as Marie,
or that they had ever masqueraded un-
der the respectable disguise of her en-
ployers.


But when the SHOWS melted off in the
spring one little silent witness came to
light, and told his pitiful story against
her; it was the dog Jingle, found dead
in the shrubbery, his throat cut and his
frozen eyes still upturned in reprOach-
ful agony.