"Won't you sit down?" he said, pointing to a chair beside her. "I would like to know why you have undertaken to rob me."
Josie sat down, her heart bounding with joy. If he mistook her for a thief all was not lost and she would not have to write "finis" as yet to this important case. But she made no answer to his remark; she merely stared at him in a dull, emotionless way that was cleverly assumed.
"I suppose," he continued, "you have been told I am rich—a miser—and perhaps you imagine I keep my wealth in that little room, because I have taken pains to secure it from intrusion by prying meddlers. I suspected you, my girl, when you came to see me the other day. Your errand was palpably invented. You wanted to get the lay of the room, in preparation for this night's work. But who told you I was worthy of being robbed? Was it Ingua?"
"No," came a surly reply. "She won't mention you to me."
"Very good. But the neighbors—the busy-bodies around here? Perhaps old Sol Jerrems has gossiped of my supposed hoard. Is it not so?"
Josie dropped her eyes as if confused but remained silent. The old man seemed to regard her as a curiosity, for his cold gray eyes examined her person with the same expression with which he might have regarded a caged monkey.
"Then you do not wish to confess?"
"What's the use?" she demanded with a burst of impatience. "Haven't you caught me at the job?"
He continued to eye her, reflectively.
"The cities breed felons," he remarked. "It is a pity so young a girl should have chosen so dangerous and disastrous a career. It is inevitably disastrous. How did it happen that Colonel Hathaway allowed you to impose on him?"