“I don’t know,” she said.  “I like silence just now.  I’ll stay here as long as you’re contented.”

He pressed her hand very lightly; it was the only time he had caressed her since they left New York, and his hand left hers instantly.

“Of course,” he explained, “I’m glad to be at a distance for a time—­a place to which we can’t be followed.”

“By Ronicky Doone?” Her question had sprung impulsively to her lips.

“Exactly.”  From the first he had been amazingly frank in confessing his fear of the Westerner.  “Who else in the world would I care about for an instant?  Where no other has ever crossed me once successfully, he has done so twice.  That, you know, makes me begin to feel that my fate is wrapped up in the young devil.”

He shuddered at the thought, as if a cold wind had struck him.

“I think you need not worry about him,” said the girl faintly.  “I suppose by this time he is in such a condition that he will never worry another soul in the world.”

The other turned and looked at her for a long, grave moment.

“You think he attempted to break into the house?”

“And didn’t you expect the same thing?  Why else did you leave New York?”

“I confess that was my idea, but I think no harm has come to him.  The chances are nine out of ten, at least, that he has not been badly hurt.”

She turned away, her hands clenched hard.

“Oh my honor,” he insisted with some emotion.  “I gave directions that, if he made an attack, he was not to be harmed more than necessary to disarm him.”

“Knowing that to disarm him would mean to kill him.”

“Not at all.  After all he is not such a terrible fellow as that—­not at all, my dear.  A blow, a shot might have dropped him.  But, unless it were followed by a second, he would not be killed.  Single shots and single blows rarely kill, you know.”

She nodded more hopefully, and then her eyes turned with a wide question upon her companion.

He answered it at once with the utmost frankness.

“You wonder why I gave such orders when I dread Doone—­when I so dread Doone—­when I so heartily want him out of my way forever?  I’ll tell you.  If Doone were killed there would be a shadow between us at once.  Not that I believe you love him—­no, that cannot be.  He may have touched your heart, but he cannot have convinced your head, and you are equal parts of brain and soul, my dear.  Therefore you cannot love him.”

She controlled the faintest of smiles at the surety of his analysis.  He could never escape from an old conclusion that the girl must be in large part his own product—­he could never keep from attributing to her his own motives.

“But just suppose,” she said, “that Ronicky Doone broke into your house, forced one of your men to tell him where we are, and then followed us at once.  He would be about due to arrive now.  What if all that happened?”