"The money," I said, "is Violet's property, and to her I shall be
perfectly willing to account for it. You must tell me where it is, and I
shall take it, and shall keep it until she comes to claim it." I waited,
and no answer came at all. I was bubbling with subdued laughter, and
fully alive at the same time to the serious side of my own position.
"Where is the money?" I asked, in a voice as stern as I could make it.
"Tell me, and tell me without delay!"

The blinds of the room were drawn, and even that faint illumination
which had guided my steps in the sitting-room was missing here. I could
see nothing but the dull gray gleam of the white counterpane and the
hangings of the bed.

"Tell me at once," I said. "You may ask me for any explanation in the
morning, and I will give it Where is the money?"

I waited, and a dead silence reigned. I repeated my question once, and
twice, and thrice: "Where is the money?" Then I heard a muffled voice
say: "Here!" I groped forward in the darkness until my hand encountered
hers, and took from her grasp a chamois-leather bag, which was all crisp
to the touch above and solid below.

"That will do," I said. "You have forced me to do this. You can raise an
alarm if you will; I am willing to defend myself, and I have taken the
only step that was left me to save the life of Violet's father."

With that I withdrew, stumbling here and there against the furniture in
the thick darkness of the room. The sitting-room beyond seemed light by
comparison, and the corridor, with its solitary sickly gleam of gas, was
as clear as it would have been in broad daylight. I ran to my own room,
and flung the bag upon the table. Then I untied the cord which bound it
at the neck, and counted its contents. There were twenty notes of the
Bank of England for one thousand pounds each, tied up in one little
ladylike bundle with a bit of narrow pink silk ribbon. There were
thirty-eight notes of five hundred pounds each, tied in the same
delicate and feminine fashion. Then there were notes of one hundred and
of fifty, to the value of seven hundred pounds. And at the bottom of
the bag was a great loose handful of gold, all in bright sovereigns and
half-sovereigns, fresh from the Mint. I estimated this little mass of
coined gold at three hundred pounds; but just as I was in the act of
counting it, the ring of a bell in violent motion tingled through the
midnight silence of the house, and I paused. I heard a door