and went to the door leading to
her office. With wildly beating heart she stood listening, seeking to
peer through the crack of the door she had left ajar. She had heard
the faint, expected sound of some one moving cautiously.

Now she heard it again, then the rustling of loose papers lying on her
table, then the faint, golden chink of yellow-minted disks. As she
suddenly scratched the match in her hand, drawing it along the wall,
she threw the door open. The tiny flame, held high, retrieved the room
from darkness into sufficient pale light. The man at her table whirled
upon her, an exclamation caught in his throat, one hand going to his
hip, the other closing tight upon what it held.

She came in, her eyes steadily upon his, her face deathly pale. As the
match fell from her fingers she went to the open window and drew down
the shade. Then she lit a second match, set it to her lamp, and sank
wearily into her chair.

"Shall we thresh matters out, Mr. Norton?" she asked.

CHAPTER XVIII

DESIRE OUTWEIGHS DISCRETION

Following Virginia's barely audible words there was a long silence.
Her eyes, dark with the trouble in them, rested upon Norton's face and
saw the frown go from his brows while slowly the red seeped into his
bronzed cheeks. For the first time in her life she saw him staggered
by the shock of surprise, held hesitant and uncertain. For a little
there was never a movement of his rigid muscles; one hand rested upon
the butt of his revolver, the other was closed upon the stack of gold
pieces. When at last he found his tongue it was to accuse her.

"You trapped me," he said bitterly.

"With golden bait," she admitted, her voice oddly spiritless. "Yes."

"Well," he challenged, "what are you going to do about it?"

"Do? I don't know!"

Again they grew silent, studying each other intently. Norton, his
poise coming back to him as the unusual color receded from his face,
smiled at her with an affectation of his old manner. Suddenly he
stepped back to her table, noiselessly set down the coins, eased
himself into a chair.

"You wished to thresh things out? I am ready. And in case we should
be interrupted, you know, I have called on you in your official
capacity. We'll say that I am troubled by the old wound in the head;
that will do as well as anything, won't it?"

"It was you who robbed the bank at Pozo!" she cried softly, leaning
toward him, the look in her eyes one of dread now. "A