For a time the girl stood motionless in the middle of the floor where the other had left her. She was trying to fathom the motive for this sudden move. What had occurred, what suspicion had arisen the instant she had left the room, for Madame Cimmino to be despatched upon her very heels to intercept and guard her? Had Jack Wolvert been conscious enough to realize her swift attack on him, and recovering, denounce her? In terror at the thought her hands flew to her breast and encountered the whistle hanging from its slender chain beneath her gown. Her fingers closed convulsively upon it and a little sob of gratitude tore its way from her throat. If actual peril came there was one chance left to her; she was not utterly at the mercy of these wolves.
When Mrs. Atterbury unlocked the door and entered an hour later, she found the girl curled up on the couch seemingly asleep. She stood over her for a long moment staring down at the tranquil face upon which the birthmark glowed in the light from the grate, and listening to the gentle regular breathing. At last she turned away and Betty, opening her eyes cautiously, beheld her employer crouching before the hearth, her dark, unbound hair increasing the pallor of her waxen face and her inscrutable gaze fixed upon the gleaming coals. The girl fell into a troubled slumber at dawn, but when she awakened the other still sat immovable, staring into the dead embers with unseeing eyes.
"You are awake, Betty? Run to your own room and dress and then come back to me quickly. We have much to do today." She barely glanced at the girl, and her tones were lifeless.
"Was—was the burglar caught?" Betty stammered as she rose to obey. "Did you lose very much of value?"
"The man whoever he was escaped, but the police have been notified," Mrs. Atterbury replied without turning her head. "I cannot tell how much has been taken until I have made an inventory of what is left. Hurry, please."
Betty returned to her room, to find Caroline on the couch at the bed's foot. The woman seemed dazed and shaken, but her eyes followed Betty craftily and the girl realized that her presence meant continued surveillance.
Wolvert appeared little the worse for his experience of the previous night when he joined the others at breakfast and he greeted Betty with perfect sang-froid, but she fancied that a speculative gleam lightened his pale eyes when they rested on her; and as the day wore on, he attached himself to her with an assiduity which left her in no doubt of his lurking suspicion.
Although the subject of the burglary was avoided as much as possible, there was a tension in the atmosphere which no one attempted to disguise, an air of repressed apprehension greater than the exigency demanded. In spite of Mrs. Atterbury's assertion that the day would be a busy one, a state of enforced idleness prevailed and Betty wandered about like an unquiet ghost with some one of the household inevitably at her heels.
As dusk drew down the espionage became more openly manifest and the girl's self-control faltered beneath the protracted strain. Was she destined to be held in duress until the raid which Herbert had predicted took place and escape was forever cut off? A new anxiety was added to the rest; if she were to continue this ghastly farce indefinitely a few minutes of absolute privacy in her own room would be essential, but how was this to be obtained?
No suggestion of leaving the house had been made by anyone during the day, but toward evening Welch was dispatched with a telegram to the nearest office. He went with marked reluctance, a furtive look of fear in his heavy-lidded eyes, still dazed from the effects of the drug. Betty watched his departing figure in bitter envy from behind the library curtains. Would her moment never come?