"That is enough." As Carrie checked him with a lifted hand, a sparkle came into her eyes. "Do you suppose for a moment that I would listen to anything further?"
Urmston sat silent, his face flushed, and his fingers fumbling with his watch-chain. For five minutes neither of them spoke. It was very still in the big room, save for the crackling of the stove. Then Carrie started, with a little gasp, for the door swung softly open, apparently of itself, and she grasped Urmston's arm.
"Shut it! Be quick!" she said.
Urmston swung round, and she felt the involuntary move he made when his eyes rested on the door. There were in the house, as both remembered, only Eveline Annersly, who had retired early with a headache, and Mrs. Nesbit, who would have come in by the other entrance. Doors do not open of their own accord when there is not a breath of wind astir, and it is somewhat disconcerting when they appear to do so in the middle of the night. Urmston accordingly sat where he was, watching the opening grow wider, his nerves atingle with something akin to fear. Carrie gripped him hard.
"Get Charley's rifle!" she whispered.
At last, with no great alacrity, he rose to his feet, but the time when he might have done anything had passed, for a masked man stood just inside the threshold with a big pistol in his hand.
"I guess you'll stop just where you are," he said.
Urmston stood still, as most men would have done, though Leland's rifle hung close above his head. The stranger moved forward a pace or two. He wore soft moccasins, and a strip of grain-bag, pierced at the eyes and bound about his face, added nothing to his attractiveness.
"Don't move, Mrs. Leland," he said. "Where is your husband?"
Carrie straightened herself with an effort. She did not like the man's tone nor his inquiry. Urmston was close beside her, but she felt that she had not much to expect from him, though she was too distracted to feel any contempt for him on that account.