"I don't know what you mean!" Betty whimpered into the darkness. "Let me go, you are hurting me, Mr. Wolvert! I—I—could not sleep, I came down for a book I left unfinished and you frightened me!"
"That doesn't go; it's too thin!" he growled harshly. "Young ladies don't prowl about at night with electric torches for any innocent purpose. What's the lay?"
"I don't understand!" Betty reeled against him, then shrank away. "I—I feel faint—"
His grip insensibly relaxed and the girl, seizing her opportunity, tore herself from his grasp and vanished into the black void of the hall. She could hear the crash of the massive chair behind her as he overturned it in his stumbling pursuit and a rumble of oaths followed her up the stair. Miraculously she cleared every obstacle and her alert brain out-paced her flying feet. One desperate move was left her to turn certain exposure into possible victory. Its failure could not increase the peril of her present position and success would serve to entrench her more firmly in the confidence of the woman who would be her judge.
She groped her way noiselessly to her own door, found the switch in the wall and flooded the room with light. A pink boudoir candle stood upon her dressing-table and seizing it she thrust it into the live coals in the grate until it was partly consumed. Then shielding its flickering flame, she went straight to her employer's door and knocked boldly.
A murmur responded, a light flared up within and Mrs. Atterbury stood on the threshold. In her white robe with her long, dusky hair in two heavy plaits upon her shoulders and her waxen expressionless face, she might have been an effigy taken from some ancient place of worship; all but her eyes which gleamed like banked fires suddenly revealed.
"What is it?" she asked calmly. "You are not well, my dear?"
"Oh, it isn't that. I am quite well, but I thought you would wish to know that your safe is open downstairs," Betty whispered.
"My safe!" Mrs. Atterbury fell back a step and her pale face grayed.
"Yes, the one in the library. I suppose it is all right, as Mr. Wolvert is there, but I felt that I could not sleep without telling you."