"Oh, perfectly," she said.

She was watching him closely, and she noticed that he still made no
attempt to take possession of her jewellery, though it lay at his
hand, and that puzzled her very much, indeed, for she supposed the
very first thing a burglar did was always to seize such treasures
as these of hers. But this man paid them no attention whatever, and
did not even notice them.

He was feeling in his pockets now and he took out the revolver and
the coil of thin rope he had secured from the burglar.

"Now, do you know what I'm going to do?" he asked, with an air of
roughness and brutality that was a little overdone. He put the
revolver and the rope down on the bed, the revolver quite close to
her.

"I'm going," he continued, "to tie you up to one of those chairs.
I can't risk your playing any tricks or giving an alarm, perhaps,
while I'm searching the house. I shall take what's worth having,
and then I shall clear off, and if your stepfather's coming home
tonight you won't have to wait long till he releases you, and if he
don't come I can't help it."

He turned his back to her as he spoke and took hold of one of the
chairs in the room, and then of another and looked at them as though
carefully considering which would be the best to use for the
carrying out of his threat.