“Light your lantern, but don’t move from where you are,” she said.  “I have a pistol.”

He did as he was told, using an old-fashioned sulphur match that smelt disagreeably but made no noise.  The light spread and showed her standing with the pistol in her hand, but when she risked a glance about, nothing seemed to have been disturbed except the writing-table and her trunk.

“Now you may get up, but don’t be rash,” she said quietly and was glad to feel she could control her voice.

He got up and waited, watching her sullenly.

“What have you taken?” she asked.

“Nothing!  There was nothing worth taking!”

Agatha forced a mocking smile.  “Worn clothes won’t sell for much and I have no jewelry.”  Then she raised the pistol.  “Don’t move!  I mean you to keep still.”

He stood motionless, with a kind of dull resignation, although she thought she had noted a curious shrinking when she spoke, as if something in her voice had disturbed him.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” she resumed.  “No doubt you knew Mr. Farnam is away, but the pistol magazine is full.  To begin with, you had better empty your pockets.  Pull them inside out!”

He obeyed and dropped a pipe, a tobacco tin, and two or three silver coins.

“Those are mine; I’ve corralled nothing of yours.”

“So it seems!” Agatha rejoined.  “For all that, you can leave the things there.  How did you get in?”

“Over the veranda roof.  You hadn’t fixed the shutter in the middle.”

Agatha pondered for a few moments.  The fellow did not look afraid, but seemed to recognize that the advantage was with her.  This was lucky, because she could not keep it up long and wanted to get rid of him.

“Well,” she said, “I think you had better go out by the window you opened.  Walk down the passage in front of me and don’t try to turn round.”

He did so until he reached the window, which opened to the side.  The hinges were in good order and made no noise when he pushed back the frame.

“Get out,” said Agatha.  “I’ll shoot if you stop.”

He climbed quietly over the ledge, his lantern flickered and went out, and next moment Agatha saw nothing but the driving snow.  Then she closed the window and fastened the shutter in frantic haste, and afterwards leaned against the wall, trembling and breathing hard.  Still the man had gone and she thought he would not come back.  Pulling herself together she returned to her room.

Although she had driven the man away, she locked the door, and when she had lighted the lamp sat down to recover her calm.  There was no use in wakening Mrs. Farnam, and by and by she began to look about.  The papers in the writing-table had been thrown upon the floor; her trunk was empty and the clothes it had held were scattered.  The man had obviously been searching for something, and this was curious, because one would not expect to find jewelry in a writing-table, and a bureau with three or four drawers had not been opened.  Then she noticed her father’s letters lying in a bundle on the table, and put them back in the trunk from which she had recently taken them.  After this, she re-packed her clothes, and sitting down again tried to remember all that had happened.