"Marteau!" exclaimed the woman in a surprise and dismay equal to that of the man she confronted.
Her arm that held the pistol dropped weakly to her side. With the other hand she drew the peignoir about her, a vivid crimson wave rushed over her whole body. To surprise a man, a thief, in her room at night, was one thing; to confront the man she loved in such a guise was another. Her heart rose in her throat. For a moment she thought she would have fainted.
"You! You!" she choked out brokenly. "Mon Dieu!"
"Mademoiselle," began the man desperately, his confusion and dismay growing with every flying moment, "I——"
"What do you here," she went on impetuously, finding voice, "in my bedroom at night? I thought you——"
"For God's sake hear me. I came to——" and then he stopped lamely and in agonized embarrassment.
"For what did you come?" she insisted.
"Mademoiselle," he said, throwing his head up, "I cannot tell you. But when I was stationed here before this was the bedroom of the Commanding-Officer. I supposed it was so still. I had not the faintest idea that you—that it was——"
"And what would you do in the bedroom of the Commanding-Officer?" asked the woman, forgetting for the moment the strangeness of the situation in her anxiety to solve the problem.
"And that, I repeat, I cannot tell."