A loud scratch sounded sharply in the room.  A match spurted into flame, and above the match there sprang into view, framed in the blackness of the room, a wild and menacing dark face.  The eyes glittered at her, and suddenly a hand was raised as if to strike.  And at the gesture Violet Oliver found her voice.

She screamed, a loud shrill scream of terror, and even as she screamed, in the very midst of her terror, she saw that the hand was lowered, and that the threatening face smiled.  Then the match went out and darkness cloaked her and cloaked the thief again.  She heard a quick stealthy movement, and once more her scream rang out.  It seemed to her ages before any answer came, before she heard the sound of hurrying footsteps in the corridors.  There was a loud rapping upon her door.  She ran to it.  She heard Ralston’s voice.

“What is it?  Open!  Open!” and then in the garden the report of a rifle rang loud.

She turned up the lights, flung a dressing-gown about her shoulders and opened the door.  Ralston was in the passage, behind him she saw lights strangely wavering and other faces.  These too wavered strangely.  From very far away, she heard Ralston’s voice once more.

“What is it?  What is it?”

And then she fell forward against him and sank in a swoon upon the floor.

Ralston lifted her on to her bed and summoned her maid.  He went out of the house and made inquiries of the guard.  The sentry’s story was explicit and not to be shaken by any cross-examination.  He had patrolled that side of the house in which Mrs. Oliver’s room lay, all night.  He had seen nothing.  At one o’clock in the morning the moon sank and the night became very dark.  It was about three when a few minutes after passing beneath the verandah, and just as he had turned the corner of the house, he heard a shrill scream from Mrs. Oliver’s room.  He ran back at once, and as he ran he heard a second scream.  He saw no one, but he heard a rustling and cracking in the bushes as though a fugitive plunged through.  He fired in the direction of the noise and then ran with all speed to the spot.  He found no one, but the bushes were broken.

Ralston went back into the house and knocked at Mrs. Oliver’s door.  The maid opened it.

“How is Mrs. Oliver?” he asked, and he heard Violet herself reply faintly from the room: 

“I am better, thank you.  I was a little frightened, that’s all.”

“No wonder,” said Ralston, and he spoke again to the maid.  “Has anything gone?  Has anything been stolen?  There was a jewel-case upon the dressing-table.  I saw it.”

The maid looked at him curiously, before she answered.  “Nothing has been touched.”

Then, with a glance towards the bed, the maid stooped quickly to a trunk which stood against the wall close by the door and then slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.  The corridors were now lighted up, as though it were still evening and the household had not yet gone to bed.  Ralston saw that the maid held a bundle in her hands.