“Go ahead.  What next?”

“While you lay ill during a week or ten days you had time to think.  You remember having told me that you had had time to think about everything in the world?  It was at that time, wasn’t it, that you came to the decision which you mentioned to me that a man to commit crime and play safe at the same time must keep in mind two essential matters:  First, the lone hand; second, not to kill?”

“I thought it out then; yes.  In fact, I suppose I told you so.”

“The crimes committed recently have been characterized by these two essentials, haven’t they?  Nearly all of them?”

He nodded, watching her keenly, holding back his answers for just a second or two each time.

“I believe so.”

“Did you ever have an impulse to steal before you were knocked unconscious at the Casa Blanca?”

“No.”

“And you have had that impulse almost all the time ever since?  Answer me, tell me the truth!  I am right, am I not?”

Now again he laughed softly at her.

“Virginia Page, the medico, speaks,” he returned lightly.  “She has a theory.  A man may have such an accident, leaving such and such pressure on the brain, with the result that he becomes a thief or worse!  Virginia . . .”

“Theory!  It is no theory.  It is an established, undeniable, and undenied fact!  It has occurred time and again, physicians have observed, have made cures!  Can’t you see now, Rod Norton?  Won’t you see?”

She was upon her feet, her hands clasped before her, her eyes shining, her figure tense, her cheeks stained with the color of her excitement.

“I don’t care whether Patten is a physician or not,” she ran on.  “He is a bungler.  It is a sheer wonder he did not let you die.  You told me yourself that he attributed the second wound to your fall and that you knew that Moraga had struck you a terrible blow with his gun-barrel.  Patten did not treat that wound; he cared for the lesser injury like a fool and allowed the major one to take care of itself.  And the result . . .  Oh, dear God!  Think of what might have happened.  If any one but me had learned what I have learned to-night.”

He rose with her, stood still, regarding her with eyes like drills.  Then he shook his head.

“You are wrong, Virginia, dead wrong,” he told her with quiet emphasis.  “You have called me a thief?  Well, perhaps I am.  You have given your explanation; let me give mine.”

He paused, shaping the matter in mind.  His face was stern and very, very grave.  Presently, his lowered voice guarded against any chance ears, he continued.