“You can’t know it.”

“I do.”

“Tell me the reason then.”

“You were frightened by this business of the window.”

Violet made a movement.  She was in the mood to contradict him.  But he went on, and so the mood passed.

“It was only natural.  Here were you in a frontier town, a wild town on the borders of a wild country.  A window bolted at dinner-time and unlocked at bedtime—­it was easy to find something sinister in that.  You did not like to speak of it, lest it should trouble your hosts.  Yet it weighed on you.  It occupied your thoughts.”

“And to that you put down my embarrassment?” she asked quietly.  They had come again to the window of the drawing-room.

“Yes, I do,” he answered.

She looked at him strangely for a few moments.  But the compulsion which she had felt upon her a moment ago to speak was gone.  She no longer sought to contradict him.  Without a word she slipped into the drawing-room.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE THIEF

Violet Oliver was harassed that night as she had never before been harassed at any moment of her easy life.  She fled to her room.  She stood in front of her mirror gazing helplessly at the reflection of her troubled face.

“What shall I do?” she cried piteously.  “What shall I do?”

And it was not until some minutes had passed that she gave a thought to whether her window on this night was bolted or not.

She moved quickly across the room and drew the curtains apart.  This time the bolt was shot.  But she did not turn back to her room.  She let the curtains fall behind her and leaned her forehead against the glass.  There was a moon to-night, and the quiet garden stretched in front of her a place of black shadows and white light.  Whether a thief lurked in those shadows and watched from them she did not now consider.  The rattle of a rifle from a sentry near at hand gave her confidence; and all her trouble lay in the house behind her.

She opened her window and stepped out.  “I tried to speak, but he would not listen.  Oh, why did I ever come here?” she cried.  “It would have been so easy not to have come.”

But even while she cried out her regrets, they were not all the truth.  There was still alive within her the longing to follow the difficult way—­the way of fire and stones, as it would be for her—­if only she could!  She had made a beginning that night.  Yes, she had made a beginning though nothing had come of it.  That was not her fault, she assured herself.  She had tried to speak.  But could she keep it up?  She turned and twisted; she was caught in a trap.  Passion had trapped her unawares.

She went back to the room and bolted the window.  Then again she stood in front of her mirror and gazed at herself in thought.