“How do I know you haven’t confederates waiting outside?”

“That’s true,” he said seriously.

There was a silence.  Her nerves seemed to trouble her, for she began to pace to and fro in front of the passageway where he sat comfortably on his chair, arms folded, one knee dropped over the other.

The light being behind her he could not as yet distinguish her features very clearly.  Her figure was youthful, slender, yet beautifully rounded; her head charming in contour.  He watched her restlessly walking on the floor, small hand clutching the pistol resting on her hip.

The ruddy burnished glimmer on the edges of her hair he supposed, at first, was caused by the strong light behind her.

“This is atrocious!” she murmured, halting to confront him.  “How dared you sever every electric connection in my house?”

As she spoke she stepped backward a pace or two, resting herself for a moment against the footboard of the bed—­full in the gaslight.  And he saw her face.

For a moment he studied her; an immense wave of incredulity swept over him—­of wild unbelief, slowly changing to the astonishment of dawning conviction.  Astounded, silent, he stared at her from his shadowy corner; and after a while his pulses began to throb and throb and hammer, and the clamoring confusion of his senses seemed to deafen him.

[Illustration:  “‘This is atrocious,’ she murmured, halting to confront him.”]

She rested a moment or two against the footboard of the bed, her big gray eyes fixed on his vague and shadowy form.

“This won’t do,” she said.

“No,” he said, “it won’t do.”

He spoke very quietly, very gently.  She detected the alteration in his voice and started slightly, as though the distant echo of a familiar voice had sounded.

“What did you say?” she asked, coming nearer, pistol glittering in advance.

“I said ‘It won’t do.’  I don’t know what I meant by it.  If I meant anything I was wrong.  It will do.  The situation is perfectly agreeable to me.”

“Insolence will not help you,” she said sharply.  And under the sharpness he detected the slightest quaver of a new alarm.

“I am going to free myself,” he said coolly.

“If you move I shall certainly shoot!” she retorted.

“I am going to move—­but only my lips.  I have only to move my lips to free myself.”

“I should scarcely advise you to trust to your eloquence.  I have been duly warned, you see.”

“Who warned you?” he asked curiously.  And, as she disdained to reply:  “Never mind.  We can clear that up later.  Now let me ask you something.”

“You are scarcely in a position to ask questions,” she said.

“May I not speak to you?”

“Is it necessary?”

He thought a moment.  “No, not necessary.  Nothing is in this life, you know.  I thought differently once.  Once—­when I was younger—­six years younger—­I thought happiness was necessary.  I found that a man might live without it.”