Now she heard it again, then the rustling of loose papers lying on her table, then the faint, golden chink of yellow-minted disks.  As she suddenly scratched the match in her hand, drawing it along the wall, she threw the door open.  The tiny flame, held high, retrieved the room from darkness into sufficient pale light.  The man at her table whirled upon her, an exclamation caught in his throat, one hand going to his hip, the other closing tight upon what it held.

She came in, her eyes steadily upon his, her face deathly pale.  As the match fell from her fingers she went to the open window and drew down the shade.  Then she lit a second match, set it to her lamp, and sank wearily into her chair.

“Shall we thresh matters out, Mr. Norton?” she asked.

CHAPTER XVIII

DESIRE OUTWEIGHS DISCRETION

Following Virginia’s barely audible words there was a long silence.  Her eyes, dark with the trouble in them, rested upon Norton’s face and saw the frown go from his brows while slowly the red seeped into his bronzed cheeks.  For the first time in her life she saw him staggered by the shock of surprise, held hesitant and uncertain.  For a little there was never a movement of his rigid muscles; one hand rested upon the butt of his revolver, the other was closed upon the stack of gold pieces.  When at last he found his tongue it was to accuse her.

“You trapped me,” he said bitterly.

“With golden bait,” she admitted, her voice oddly spiritless.  “Yes.”

“Well,” he challenged, “what are you going to do about it?”

“Do?  I don’t know!”

Again they grew silent, studying each other intently.  Norton, his poise coming back to him as the unusual color receded from his face, smiled at her with an affectation of his old manner.  Suddenly he stepped back to her table, noiselessly set down the coins, eased himself into a chair.

“You wished to thresh things out?  I am ready.  And in case we should be interrupted, you know, I have called on you in your official capacity.  We’ll say that I am troubled by the old wound in the head; that will do as well as anything, won’t it?”

“It was you who robbed the bank at Pozo!” she cried softly, leaning toward him, the look in her eyes one of dread now.  “And the mine superintendent at Las Palmas?  And I don’t know how many other people.  It was you!”

She had startled him in the beginning; she knew she would not draw another sign of surprise from him.  He had himself under control, and long years of severe training made that control complete.  He merely looked interested under her sweeping accusation.

“You must have a reason for a charge like that,” he remarked evenly.

“Do you deny it?”

“I deny nothing, I affirm nothing right now.  I say that you must have a reason for what you state.”