Sheer terror at her awful position froze Virginie to an immovable statue for a moment. It seemed almost unbelievable, like the situation in some terrible dream. Could it actually be true? She knew not what to say, what to think, what to do. Her brain absolutely refused to work, her body to move.

It was Melanie herself who broke the spell. "What are you doing here?" she whispered. The sound of her voice released Virginie from the nightmare of immovable terror. A sudden determination was born in her, a wild impulse to throw herself entirely on the mercy of this strange, silent woman whose sympathy she had sometimes felt, though it had never been expressed. It was, she also realized, her only course now.

"Oh, Melanie! I can stand it all no longer! I am going to go away. I am going with friends who will love me and be kind to me. And to show my gratitude to them for taking me away from this terrible place, I am going to restore to them what she has stolen—this! It is all I can do. Help me, Melanie! I think you—care for me a little, do you not? I have always thought so. Do not drag me back again into this horrible life!" She crept over and clasped both arms about the woman's neck.

Melanie caught her breath in surprise. The contact of the girl's clinging body and the clasp of her soft young arms seemed to have a curious effect on the stern, repressed woman. Tears started to her eyes and her breath came in little gasps. She raised her arms and for an instant it seemed as if she were about to push the girl away. Then, to Virginie's surprise, she suddenly clasped her in a convulsive embrace.

"My little heart! The only baby I ever had to love!" she murmured brokenly.

Virginie was quick to seize her advantage. "Oh, Melanie, help me to get away from this terrible house. I can endure it no longer. I have suffered too much. You know what I have suffered. And now, at last, I have the opportunity to get away from it all. Do not prevent it, dear Melanie. Do not tell her! And I will love you always. Will you do this one thing for me?"

The woman hesitated for a long, tense moment. Then she shrugged her shoulders and pushed the clinging girl a little way from her.

"I owe much to—her—everything practically," she said. "My existence almost, and the lives of my family. My mother and my little sisters would have died of starvation had it not been for her. She saved us all, but she has made me pay a terrible price. She owns me, body and soul. I have done despicable things for her—because I had to. But one thing has been harder for me than all the rest—her treatment of you, my little Virginie, in these last four terrible years. I have loved you always, from a baby, when you were left motherless. I have felt all that she has made you suffer. Yet what could I do? I was helpless.

"But now you wish to escape, to get away from it all. Well, you shall. It will perhaps help to ease my conscience that I have done at least one good deed. I will leave the way clear. You shall take the paper if you wish—and go. I only pray you may be happy at last. Madame shall never know how you got away. But wait just one moment. There is something I wish to give you before you go. Stay where you are and I will be back immediately."

Virginie, only too grateful for the turn affairs had taken, consented to remain where she was till Melanie came back, and the woman hurried away in the direction of the kitchen. But Melanie was gone what seemed a very long time. The girl began to grow impatient and even alarmed at the delay. What if Madame should take a notion to call her now? What could Melanie be about?

And even as this passed through her mind, the languid voice of Madame floated down the stairs, calling to her to come up and read aloud and fan her till she got to sleep. In an agony of anxiety, Virginie stood, reluctant to answer, yet scarcely daring not to, till at length Melanie came hurrying back.

"Here it is," she whispered, and crushed a scrap of paper into Virginie's hand. "Now go!" she ended, pointing to the door. "I will tell her that you are not in the house. Have no fear and—good-by!"

They clasped each other in a last embrace. Then Virginie, the precious Crimson Patch clutched to her heart, slipped silently out of the door that Melanie held open and fled away across the lawn. And ere the door was closed, she had reached the edge of the woods and flung herself into the arms Patricia held out to her.

It was a mad ride back to the city, a ride in which they broke the speed-limit many times and slowed down to normal pace as the outskirts of the town appeared. Virginie sat with Patricia on the rear seat. So exhausted nervously was she, that she could say almost nothing, and only lay back with her eyes closed and her hand clasped in Patricia's. And Patricia was sensible enough not to urge her to talk, though she was burning with curiosity to know how the girl had made her escape with the Crimson Patch. The precious sketch now lay securely hidden, and she longed for the moment when she could restore it to her father.

And the thought of her father brought her suddenly face to face with the problem of what they were going to do when they got back to town again. She shrank from the idea of returning to the hotel with the half-fainting Belgian girl. It would arouse comment. Beside that, if her father or Mrs. Quale were not there, it might be a dangerous place for them to stay alone. Who could tell but what Madame might trace them there and demand the immediate return of the girl who was supposed to be in her care? What, indeed, were they to do?

She leaned forward and confided her doubts to Chet. And again she was astonished at the foresight of this clever boy.

"You bet I worked that all out some little time ago. It sure wouldn't be healthy for you to go back there—at least not till your father gets back. But I got a scheme that'll work all right—that is, if you care to do it. You come right to our place and stay with my mother. I told her this morning she might have some company before night, so she's half expectin' you. I'll go back an' hang around the hotel, an' the minute your father or Mrs. Quale comes along, I'll tip 'em off to the lay of the land an' fetch 'em right over. How about it?"

"Oh, Chester, you're wonderful!" sighed Patricia. "You certainly do think of everything. I never saw any one like you."

"Don't take much brain to think of that!" protested Chet, modestly. "There sure is a chance that that bunch will try to trace the girl an' get her back, an' they'd probably guess right away that she's swiped the paper an' gone back to you. But, on the other hand, they may be scared stiff for fear she's given the game away, an' are tumblin' all over themselves tryin' to get out of sight before the Government gets on to 'em. However, we ain't takin' any chances."

Chet Jackson's home was in an unpretentious side street, a neat little box of a house, and as the car drew up at the curb, a large, comfortable, motherly woman, with a wide smile extremely like that of her youngest son's, appeared at the door. Patricia had been rather dreading the explanations and apologies that she realized must surely be in order on their arrival. So weary and overwrought was she, that she felt almost unequal to undertaking them. But much to her amazed relief, none seemed to be required. Mrs. Jackson acted as if a fugitive party of this nature was an every-day occurrence and needed no comment.

"Come right in, ladies!" she welcomed them, when Chet had made the introductions. "You look very tired. I'm going to put you right in this room by yourselves, and you can rest as long as you wish till some one comes for you." And she led them into a neat, ugly little bedroom and left them to themselves.

Patricia made Virginie lie down on the bed, while she established herself in a comfortable old rocker near by. Delia, having assured herself that her young charges were in good hands, departed for the hotel to be there when Mrs. Quale returned. For half an hour the two girls remained as she had left them, each too much overcome to utter a single word.

So quiet was Virginie at last, that Patricia thought she must surely have fallen asleep, till she noticed two tears stealing down her cheeks.

"Why, darling, what is the trouble?" she questioned, laying her head down beside her.

"My father!" sobbed Virginie. "Do you think I have—have killed him?"

To divert her mind from this distressing subject, Patricia begged her to tell how she had managed to make her escape, and, in the recital, the Belgian girl forgot her fears for a while.

"But what was it that Melanie gave you?" questioned Patricia, and Virginie opened her hand and disclosed the crumpled scrap of paper that she had held clenched in it all this time. So absorbed had she been in other things that she had not till this moment noticed or thought of it. Together they smoothed it out and bent to read the sentences hastily scrawled on it in lead-pencil.

There is something I must tell you [it read in French] and I am cowardly enough not to wish to say it before your face, but I cannot let you go away forever without knowing it. Would I had told you before, but I did not dare. You have been kept in this bondage by the threat that your father would pay with his life if you dared to disobey them.

Have no fear. The threat is powerless. Your father died during the siege of Antwerp—a painless death. A shell struck and exploded near his villa, damaging it. He was not injured, apparently, at the time, but the shock evidently affected his heart, for he was found soon afterward lying peacefully in his chair—dead. You should rejoice that this is so, for he is happy and at peace, and he never could have been so again had he remained alive. May God have some happiness in store for you in the future.

Virginie uttered one sobbing, astonished cry and buried her face in the pillow. Patricia, without a word, walked away to the window and left her alone to the sacredness of her sorrow. But as she stood with clenched hands, staring out at nothing, she found herself murmuring over and over again:

"Oh, they are not human! They are not human!"