So this young man went in for being a woman tamer, did he?--the mistress downstairs ordered to be civil and the maid upstairs ordered to confess. If she had time, she thought, it would amuse her to show him that things did not run so smoothly as that. She almost wished that Evans wouldn't confess. It would be worth losing her jewels to see his face when he came down to announce his failure. Steps overhead, the door opened, a voice called, "Sheriff, get your men up here, will you?" The sheriff's face lit up. "Didn't I tell you?" he said. "He's done it!" He hurried out of the room. When, a few minutes later, the district attorney came down he found Miss Bennett alone. He looked about quickly. "Where's Miss Thorne?" he said. Miss Bennett had not wanted Lydia to go--she had urged her not to. What difference did the Emmonses make in comparison with the jewels? But now she sprang to her defense. "She was forced to go. She had a train to catch--a long-standing engagement. She was so sorry. She left all sorts of messages." This was not, strictly speaking, true. O'Bannon smiled slightly. "She does not seem to take much interest in the recovery of her jewels," he said. "She has every confidence in you," said Miss Bennett flatteringly. Miss Bennett herself had. Never, she thought, had she seen a man who inspired her with a more comfortable sense of leadership. She saw he was not pleased at Lydia's sudden departure. He was not. He was furious at her. His feelings about her had flickered up and down like a flame. The vision of her going over her house alone, her hair down her back and a revolver in her hand, alone--except for Morson tagging on behind--moved him with a sense of her courage; and not only her courage but her lack of self-consciousness about it. She had spoken as if anyone would have done the same. Her hardness toward the criminal had repelled him, and when he went upstairs to interview Evans a new sensation waited for him. The robbery had not released Evans from her regular duties. She had just finished packing Lydia's things for the visit to the Emmonses, and the bedroom where she had been detained had the disheveled look of a room which had just been packed and dressed in. The bed had not been made, though its pink silk cover had been smoothed over it to allow for the folding of dresses on it. Lydia's slippers--pink mules with an edging of fur--were kicked off beside it. Long trails of tissue paper were on the floor. O'Bannon saw it all with an eye trained to observe. He saw the book of verses on the table beside her bed, the picture of the good-looking young man on her dressing table. He smelled in the air the perfume of violets, a scent which his sense remembered as having lingered in her hair. All this he took in almost before he saw the pale, black-clad criminal standing vacantly in the midst of the disorder. "Sit down," he said.