"Don!" she said, vehemently. "Don! Sometimes you tell me you love me! How can you then persist in this torture! I cannot bear to think of that book, to hear it spoken of! You may call me foolish, and probably I am. There are women who are afraid of snakes, lizards, rats; not one of those creatures could disturb my nerves. But when I think of men that live by crime, that rob and steal--and murder--it is as if the hands of one of them was on my own throat!" Soothingly I promised to be careful in the future--sadly I spoke my regrets at the pain I had caused her. I knew too well the vagaries of ill-balanced nerves not to understand that they require no reason to set themselves on edge. I bade the driver cut our ride short and we drove back to the hotel in nearly perfect silence. But I could not help my thoughts. If Wesson had stolen that book, what was there to show that he had not stolen my diamond, and those of Marjorie and of Miss Howes? What could I think but, with his almost exclusive opportunities on the steamer, he was the guilty man? I recalled his offer to watch from our cabin, his assumption of the rôle of a sleuth-hound--undoubtedly to deceive me. What was he doing at Barbados unless to watch for another chance to ply his profession? The more attention I gave to the matter the clearer everything grew. Undoubtedly Wesson was, on general principles, much more than a match for me in shrewdness, but when I started to do a thing I usually accomplished it. I resolved that if he was the thief, I would trace his work home to him and make him restore the fruits of his larceny. CHAPTER XXI. "YOU WERE IN MY ROOM." Letters that came the next morning were hardly read, so interested was I in my plan to entrap my sly fellow passenger. They were from Tom and Statia Barton and from a club friend who had obtained my address from Tom. Statia's had a tone of melancholy that she seemed trying to conceal. Tom's was full of cheer, with wholesome advice about keeping well now I had got into that condition. They had received my first letters, mailed at St. Thomas, and congratulated me on escaping what both persisted in calling the dangers of the sea. How to expose the knavery of Wesson--that was all I could think of consecutively. I told Miss May that I would not dictate to her that morning and she took the opportunity to drive down town, to do, as she said, a little shopping. Wesson also took a carriage about the same time and I heard him tell the clerk, Miss Byno, he would probably be gone till noon at least. When they were both out of sight I began to haunt the vicinity of the Boston man's room, which was on the same floor as mine, though much further down the corridor. When no one was near I tried the door, in a foolish hope that he might have left it unlocked, which, of course, he had not done.