The loud clock ticked and ticked. She was standing at her full height
now, her candle on the table, her letter in both hands, and in her
downcast face a sweet and pitiful perplexity that drew the tears to my
eyes. Through a film I saw her open the envelope so lately sealed and
read her letter once more, as though she would have altered it a
little at the last. It was too late for that; but of a sudden she
plucked a rose from her bosom, and was pressing it in with her letter
when I groaned aloud.

How could I help it? The letter was for me: of that I was as sure as
though I had been looking over her shoulder. She was as true as
tempered steel; there were not two of us to whom she wrote and sent
roses at dead of night. It was her one chance of writing to me. None
would know that she had written. And she cared enough to soften the
reproaches I had richly earned, with a red rose warm from her own warm
heart. And there, and there was I, a common thief who had broken in to
steal! Yet I was unaware that I had uttered a sound until she looked
up, startled, and the hands behind me pinned me where I stood.

I think she must have seen us, even in the dim light of the solitary
candle. Yet not a sound escaped her as she peered courageously in our
direction; neither did one of us move; but the hall clock went on and
on, every tick like the beat of a drum to bring the house about our
ears, until a minute must have passed as in some breathless dream. And
then came the awakening--with such a knocking and a ringing at the
front door as brought all three of us to our senses on the spot.

"The son of the house!" whispered Raffles in my ear, as he dragged me
back to the window he had left open for our escape. But as he leaped
out first a sharp cry stopped me at the sill. "Get back! Get back!
We're trapped!" he cried; and in the single second that I stood there,
I saw him fell one officer to the ground, and dart across the lawn
with another at his heels. A third came running up to the window. What
could I do but double back into the house? And there in the hall I met
my lost love face to face.

Till that moment she had not recognized me. I ran to catch her as she
all but fell. And my touch repelled her into life, so that she shook
me off, and stood gasping: "You, of all men! You, of all men!" until I
could bear it no more, but broke again for the study-window. "Not
that way--not that way!" she cried in an agony at that. Her hands
were