Violet made a movement. She was in the mood to contradict him. But he went on, and so the mood passed.
"It was only natural. Here were you in a frontier town, a wild town on the borders of a wild country. A window bolted at dinner-time and unlocked at bedtime—it was easy to find something sinister in that. You did not like to speak of it, lest it should trouble your hosts. Yet it weighed on you. It occupied your thoughts."
"And to that you put down my embarrassment?" she asked quietly. They had come again to the window of the drawing-room.
"Yes, I do," he answered.
She looked at him strangely for a few moments. But the compulsion which she had felt upon her a moment ago to speak was gone. She no longer sought to contradict him. Without a word she slipped into the drawing-room.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE THIEF
Violet Oliver was harassed that night as she had never before been harassed at any moment of her easy life. She fled to her room. She stood in front of her mirror gazing helplessly at the reflection of her troubled face.
"What shall I do?" she cried piteously. "What shall I do?"
And it was not until some minutes had passed that she gave a thought to whether her window on this night was bolted or not.