He could not know that if she had not run out, it was because that morning, under the stress of growing uneasiness at the presence of the incomprehensible visitors, Heyst had confessed to her that it was his revolver he had been looking for in the night; that it was gone, that he was a disarmed, defenceless man. She had hardly comprehended the meaning of his confession. Now she understood better what it meant. The effort of her self-control, her stillness, impressed Ricardo. Suddenly she spoke:
“What are you after?”
He did not raise his eyes. His hands reposing on his knees, his drooping head, something reflective in his pose, suggested the weariness of a simple soul, the fatigue of a mental rather than physical contest. He answered the direct question by a direct statement, as if he were too tired to dissemble:
“After the swag.”
The word was strange to her. The veiled ardour of her grey gaze from under the dark eyebrows never left Ricardo's.
“A swag?” she murmured quietly. “What's that?”
“Why, swag, plunder—what your gentleman has been pinching right and left for years—the pieces. Don't you know? This!”
Without looking up, he made the motion of counting money into the palm of his hand. She lowered her eyes slightly to observe this bit of pantomime, but returned them to his face at once. Then, in a mere breath:
“How do you know anything about him?” she asked, concealing her puzzled alarm. “What has it got to do with you?”
“Everything,” was Ricardo's concise answer, in a low, emphatic whisper. He reflected that this girl was really his best hope. Out of the unfaded impression of past violence there was growing the sort of sentiment which prevents a man from being indifferent to a woman he has once held in his arms—if even against her will—and still more so if she has pardoned the outrage. It becomes then a sort of bond. He felt positively the need to confide in her—a subtle trait of masculinity, this almost physical need of trust which can exist side by side with the most brutal readiness of suspicion.