There was a new scurry of footfalls.  Ronicky Doone heard them approach the door of the girl’s room, and he slipped into the closet.  At once a cloud of soft, cool silks brushed about him, and he worked back until his shoulders had touched the wall at the back of the closet.  Luckily the enclosure was deep, and the clothes were hanging thickly from the racks.  It was sufficient to conceal him from any careless searcher, but it would do no good if any one probed; and certainly these men were not the ones to search carelessly.

In the meantime it was a position which made Ronicky grind his teeth.  To be found skulking among woman’s clothes in a closet—­to be dragged out and stuck in the back, no doubt, like a rat, and thrown into the river, that was an end for Ronicky Doone indeed!

He was on the verge of slipping out and making a mad break for the door of the house and trying to escape by taking the men by surprise, when he heard the door of the girl’s room open.

“Some ex-pugilist,” he heard a man’s voice saying, and he recognized it at once as belonging to him who had given the orders.  He recognized, also, that it must be the man with the sneer.

“You think he was an amateur robber and an expert prize fighter?” asked Ruth Tolliver.

It seemed to Ronicky Doone that her voice was perfectly controlled and calm.  Perhaps it was her face that betrayed emotion, for after a moment of silence, the man answered.

“What’s the matter?  You’re as nervous as a child tonight, Ruth?”

“Isn’t there reason enough to make me nervous?” she demanded.  “A robber—­Heaven knows what—­running at large in the house?”

“H’m!” murmured the man.  “Devilish queer that you should get so excited all at once.  No, it’s something else.  I’ve trained you too well for you to go to pieces like this over nothing.  What is it, Ruth?”

There was no answer.  Then the voice began again, silken-smooth and gentle, so gentle and kindly that Ronicky Doone started.  “In the old days you used to keep nothing from me; we were companions, Ruth.  That was when you were a child.  Now that you are a woman, when you feel more, think more, see more, when our companionship should be like a running stream, continually bringing new things into my life, I find barriers between us.  Why is it, my dear?”

Still there was no answer.  The pulse of Ronicky Doone began to quicken, as though the question had been asked him, as though he himself were fumbling for the answer.

“Let us talk more freely,” went on the man.  “Try to open your mind to me.  There are things which you dislike in me; I know it.  Just what those things are I cannot tell, but we must break down these foolish little barriers which are appearing more and more every day.  Not that I mean to intrude myself on you every moment of your life.  You understand that, of course?”

“Of course,” said the girl faintly.