He watched her little figure glide out of the room behind its headlight, then he turned to the contemplation of the miniature portraits in gem-set frames, the old hand-painted fans, the heavy old-fashioned lockets and earrings and bracelets, that lay upon the glass shelves of the cabinet.
He had no distinct thought toward the articles—there was no thought, not even a vague one, in his mind. His throat and lips were dry, his eyes were wide and fixed. His dizzy, unpowering emotion had so increased that he would not have been surprised had he slipped to the floor and spread out like a boneless sea creature. He was mental and emotional incoherence.
The intention to steal had brought him here. That intention was over an hour old, but since it had been neither fulfilled nor countermanded, it was stored energy; and presently it began to move his will-less members, as the stored energy of a coiled spring sets an automaton at its appointed task. He took from the floor the plunder-bag Kate had given him, and holding the lantern and the edge of the bag's mouth in his left hand, he swung open the plate-glass door of the cabinet. His eyes selected a golden bracelet, and his hand moved slowly forward and took it up.
Then suddenly his fingers unclosed, the bracelet clicked back upon the glass shelf, and his hand withdrew from the cabinet. The coiled spring of his intention had snapped. The touch of what was another man's had readjusted his confused senses. His blurred feelings became definite, his dumb brain articulate. He saw what he was doing, saw it clearly, as a bare act, unjustified by the arguments his bitterness had urged upon him an hour before—saw that he was committing a theft!
A chill swept through him and he sat stiffly upright in his chair and stared at the bracelet he had dropped. In the mood he had been in an hour or two hours before David would not have drawn back from theft, any more than any other normal starving man, could it have been committed quickly, upon impulse. But the hour that had passed, the deliberation which was surrounding the theft, had given opportunity to his moral being to overthrow the impulse and assert itself.
He rose, forgetting even to take the cabinet key. He would leave the house at once.
But as he passed out of the drawing-room it came to him that he could not go away without telling Kate of his purpose. Before him he saw a flight of stairs; she was somewhere above. He stealthily mounted, passed through a doorway and found himself in a library. He stood a moment with strained ears, but got no sound of her. He must go through the floor, and perhaps through the floor above; but before proceeding further he must get the lay of the house.
He moved noiselessly toward the library table, drawing out the plan Kate had given him. He set the lantern on the table beside a telephone, spread out the sheets and was sitting down when cautious footfalls sounded without. The next instant a blade of light stabbed the room's darkness.
"Kate?" he whispered.
"Yes."