"Enough. Judge Lindman disappeared--the supposition is that he was abducted. I placed some men around the courthouse, to safeguard the records, and Trevison broke in and set fire to the place. He also robbed the safe in the bank, and killed Braman--choked him to death. A most revolting murder. I'm sorry I disturbed you--good night." The girl closed the door as he left it, and leaned against it, weak and shaking. Corrigan's voice had a curious note in it. He had told her he was sorry to have disturbed her, but the words had not rung true--there had been too much satisfaction in them. What was she to believe from this night's events? One thought leaped vividly above the others that rioted in her mind: Trevison had again sinned against the law, and this time his crime was murder! She shrank away from the door and joined Agatha at the foot of the stairs. "Aunty," she sobbed; "I want to go away. I want to go back East, away from this lawlessness and confusion!" "There, there, dear," soothed Agatha. "I am sure everything will come out all right. But Trevison _does_ look to be the sort of a man who would abduct a judge, doesn't he? If I were a girl, and felt that he were in love with me, I'd be mighty careful--" "That he wouldn't abduct you?" laughed the girl, tremulously, cheered by the change in her relative's manner. "No," said Agatha, slyly. "I'd be mighty careful that he _got_ me!" "Oh!" said the girl, and buried her face in her aunt's shoulder. CHAPTER XXV IN THE DARK Trevison faced the darkness between him and the pueblo with a wild hope pulsing through his veins. Rosalind Benham had had an opportunity to deliver him into the hands of his enemy and she had not taken advantage of it. There was but one interpretation that he might place upon her failure to aid her accomplice. She declined to take an active part in the scheme. She had been passive, content to watch while Corrigan did the real work. Possibly she had no conception of the enormity of the crime. She had been eager to have Corrigan win, and influenced by her affection and his arguments she had done what she could without actually committing herself to the robbery. It was a charitable explanation, and had many flaws, but he clung to it persistently, nurturing it with his hopes and his hunger for her, building it up until it became a structure of logic firmly fixed and impregnable. Women were easily influenced--that had been his experience with them--he was forced to accept it as a trait of the sex. So he absolved her, his hunger for her in no way sated at the end.