Angela sat up in bed, watching.  The thing did not seem real at all.  It was but a scene in a play; the black figure, dragged along the floor like a parcel, then jerked to its feet to have both arms pinioned behind its back; and in a brief moment, with scarce a sound.  The light from the next room let her see the two men clearly:  the tall one in pajamas, as he must have sprung out of bed at her call:  the little one in black, with a mask of crape or some thin material over the upper part of his face.  Now, in the silent struggle, the mask had become disarranged, to show a small, light, pointed moustache.  She recognized it, and knew in an instant why she had been thought worth robbing.  This was the creature who had tried to pick up her gold bag; he had seen her rings, and perhaps had spied the pearls.

“Take care!” she gasped a warning.  “He may have a revolver!” As she spoke, she sank back on the pillows, feeling suddenly limp and powerless, as she lay drowned in the long waves of hair that flowed round her like moonlight.

“The little sneak won’t get to draw it if he has,” said the tall man, in a tone so quiet that Angela was struck with surprise.  It seemed wonderful that one who had just fought as he had could have kept control of breath and head.  His voice did not even sound excited, though here was trembling.  “Don’t be scared,” he went on.  “The mean galoot!  A prairie-dog could tear him to pieces.”

“I’m not frightened—­now,” she answered.  “Oh, thank you for coming.  You’ve saved my life.  Can’t I help?  I might go to the telephone and call——­”

“No.  Do nothing of the sort,” her neighbour commanded.  “There must be no ructions in your room.  I’m going to take this thing to my quarters.  The story’ll be, he was getting into my window when I waked up and nabbed him.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Angela, roused to understanding and appreciation.  “For me, that would be good—­but for you——­”

“For me, it’s all right, too.  And you don’t come on in this act, lady.”

“He’ll tell,” she said.

“I guess not.  Not unless he’s in a hurry to see what it’s like down where he goes next.  If he so much as peeps while I’m in reach, I’ll shake him till his spine sticks out of his head like a telegraph-pole.  Or if he waits till he thinks I can’t get at him, I’ll scatter him over the landscape with my gun, if I fire across a court-room.  He sees I’m the kind of man to keep my word.”  These threats were uttered in the same quiet voice, and the speaker went on in a different tone, “I’ll tell you what you can do, lady, if you don’t mind.  I hate to trouble you; but maybe ’twould be best for me not to try it with one hand, and him in the other.  If you’d slip into my room and push up the window nearest this way a few inches higher, it would bear me out better when I say he came through there.”

Angela sat up again, and reached out for her white silk dressing-gown, which lay across the foot of the bed.  Wrapping it hastily round her, she ran into her neighbour’s room.  As she flashed by him, where he stood holding his captive, he thought more and more of his angel vision with the moonlight hair, and it seemed a strange, almost miraculous coincidence that he should behold it in real life, after describing his dreams to Carmen Gaylor.