“How is this to end?  We cannot go on here in this way,” said Falkner suddenly.

“If we cannot get away it must go on.  Look here, Ned.  I don’t reckon to take anything out of this house that I didn’t bring in it, or isn’t freely offered to me; yet I don’t otherwise, you understand, intend making myself out a d—­d bit better than I am.  That’s the only excuse I have for not making myself out just what I am.  I don’t know the fellow who’s obliged to tell every one the last company he was in, or the last thing he did!  Do you suppose even these pretty little women tell us their whole story?  Do you fancy that this St. John in the wilderness is canonized in his family?  Perhaps, when I take the liberty to intrude in his affairs, as he has in mine, he’d see he isn’t.  I don’t blame you for being sensitive, Ned.  It’s natural.  When a man lives outside the revised statutes of his own State he is apt to be awfully fine on points of etiquette in his own household.  As for me, I find it rather comfortable here.  The beds of other people’s making strike me as being more satisfactory than my own.  Good-night.”

In a few moments he was sleeping the peaceful sleep of that youth which seemed to be his own dominant quality.  Falkner stood for a little space and watched him, following the boyish lines of his cheek on the pillow, from the shadow of the light brown lashes under his closed lids to the lifting of his short upper lip over his white teeth, with his regular respiration.  Only a sharp accenting of the line of nostril and jaw and a faint depression of the temple betrayed his already tried manhood.

The house had long sunk to repose when Falkner returned to the window, and remained looking out upon the storm.  Suddenly he extinguished the light, and passing quickly to the bed laid his hand upon the sleeper.  Lee opened his eyes instantly.

“Are you awake?”

“Perfectly.”

“Somebody is trying to get into the house!”

“Not him, eh?” said Lee gayly.

“No; two men.  Mexicans, I think.  One looks like Manuel.”

“Ah,” said Lee, drawing himself up to a sitting posture.

“Well?”

“Don’t you see?  He believes the women are alone.”

“The dog—­d—­d hound!”

“Speak respectfully of one of my people, if you please, and hand me my derringer.  Light the candle again, and open the door.  Let them get in quietly.  They’ll come here first.  It’s his room, you understand, and if there’s any money it’s here.  Anyway, they must pass here to get to the women’s rooms.  Leave Manuel to me, and you take care of the other.”

“I see.”

“Manuel knows the house, and will come first.  When he’s fairly in the room shut the door and go for the other.  But no noise.  This is just one of the SW-EETEST things out—­if it’s done properly.”

“But you, George?”

“If I couldn’t manage that fellow without turning down the bedclothes I’d kick myself.  Hush.  Steady now.”