He was allowed to rest on the settle in the large inner kitchen, securely locked in, and so near Morin’s room that his movements could be overheard.  There, still in bonds, he spent the rest of the night.

CHAPTER IV

When the March morning shone clear and white through the still-falling snow, and the Morins began to bustle about their work for the day, the mental atmosphere in the kitchen seemed to have lost something of the excited alarm that had prevailed in the night.  Courthope arose; the garments which he had donned in the night with frantic speed clothed but did not adorn him; he knew that he must present a wild appearance, and the domestic clothes-line, bound round and round his arms, prevented him from so much as pushing back the locks of hair which straggled upon his brow.  He was rendered on the whole helpless; however murderous might be his heart, a tolerably safe companion.  He interested himself by considering how Samson-like he could be in breaking the cords, or, even tied, how vigorously he could kick Morin, if he were not a girl’s prisoner.  He reflected with no small admiration upon the quick resource and decision that she had displayed; how, in spite of her almost child-like frankness, she had beguiled him into turning his back to the noose when a supposed necessity pressed her.  He meditated for a few minutes upon other girls for whom he had experienced a more or less particular admiration, and it seemed to him that the characters of these damsels became wan and insipid by comparison.  He began to have a presentiment that Love was now about to strike in earnest upon the harp of his life, but he could not think that the circumstances of this present attraction were propitious.  What could he say to this girl, so adorably strong-minded, to convince her of his claim to be again treated as a man and a brother?  Letters?  He had offered them to her last night, and she had replied that any one could write letters.  Should he show that he was not penniless?  She might tell him in the same tone that it was wealth ill-gotten.  It was no doubt her very ignorance of the world that, when suspicion had once occurred, made her reject as unimportant these evidences of his respectability, but he had no power to give her the eyes of experience.

These thoughts tormented him as he stood looking out of the window at the ever-increasing volume of the snow.  How long would he be detained a prisoner in this house, and, when the roads were free, how could he find for Madge any absolute proof of his innocence?  The track of the midnight thief was lost for ever in the snow; if he had succeeded in escaping as mysteriously as he had come—­but here Courthope’s mind refused again to enter upon the problem of the fiend-like enemy and the impassable snowfields, which in the hours of darkness he had already given up, perceiving the futility of his speculation until further facts were known.