Then she laughed again and settled back in her chair.

"Already thinking somebody is going to steal my gold! My five twenties. Just to punish myself I am going to leave them on my office table all night; do you suppose I'll be wondering all the time if somebody is crawling in at a window and taking them?"

Five minutes later she said good night and left him.

"I'll be up early in the morning," she said laughingly. "Just to make sure that my gold is there!"

An hour later Virginia Page, sitting fully dressed in the darkness of her bedroom, got quietly to her feet and went to the door leading to her office. With wildly beating heart she stood listening, seeking to peer through the crack of the door she had left ajar. She had heard the faint, expected sound of some one moving cautiously.

Now she heard it again, then the rustling of loose papers lying on her table, then the faint, golden c.h.i.n.k 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 b.u.t.t 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."

"You put the incriminating evidence in del Rio's trunk," she ran on hurriedly. "The canvas bags of gold. Didn't you?"

"Reason?" he insisted equably.

"You took Caleb Patten's fountain pen! I saw you."

He lifted his brows at her. Then he laughed softly.

"In the first place," he replied thoughtfully, "I really believe that he is not Caleb at all but Charles Patten. We'll talk of that later, however. In the second place isn't it rather humorous to wind up by accusing a man with the theft of a fountain pen after your other charges?"

"Answer one question," she urged earnestly. "Please. It is only a small matter. Give me your word of honor that you will answer it truthfully."

He was very grave as he sat for a moment, head down, twirling his big hat in slow fingers. Then he smiled again as he looked up.

"Either truthfully or not at all," he promised her. "My word of honor."

She was plainly excited as she set him her question, seeming at once eager and afraid to have his response.

"I saw you take Patten's fountain pen and a sc.r.a.p of note-paper from the table by your bed when you were hurt--the first time I called to see how you were doing. I thought that perhaps there was something of importance written on the paper, that, if nothing else, you wanted a bit of Patten's handwriting to use in your proof that he was not the man he pretended to be. You slipped both pen and paper under your pillow. Tell me just this: Was that paper of any importance whatever, of any interest even, to you?"

"No," he said steadily, without hesitation. "It was not. I did not so much as look at it."

She leaned back in her chair with a long sigh, her eyes wide on his.

And while he marvelled at it, he saw that now her look was one of pure pity.

"Just what has that got to do with the robberies you mention?"

"Everything!" she burst out. "Everything! Can't you see? Oh, my G.o.d!"

She dropped her face into her hands and he saw her shoulders lift and slump. Glancing aside swiftly, he saw the five golden disks on the table, almost to be reached from where he sat.

"No doubt," he said hastily, as her head was lifted again, "you think that you would like to send me to jail?"

"Jail, no! A thousand times no! But you must, you must let me send you to a hospital!"

He frowned at her while he gave over twirling his hat and grew very still.

"You think I am crazy?" he asked sharply. "That it?"

"No. You are as sane as I am. I don't think that at all. But . . .

Oh, can't you understand?"

"No, I can't. You accuse me of this and that, you give no reasons for your wild suspicions, you end up by suggesting medical treatment.

What's the answer, Virginia Page?"

"The answer, Roderick Norton, is a very simple one. But first I am going to ask you another question or so. You sought to commit a theft to-night, I saw you, so there is no use denying it to me, is there?"

"Go ahead. What next?"