re how much it adds to my unhappiness to know
that another is being drawn into his toils, and yet you refuse to do the
one and only thing which can make my mind easier."

"Fraeulein," I said, rising and standing before her, "the first time I
saw you I knew that you were unhappy. I could see that the canker of
some great sorrow was eating into your heart. I wished that I could help
you, and Fate accordingly willed that I should make your acquaintance.
Afterward, by a terrible series of coincidences, I was brought into
personal contact with your life. I found that my first impression was a
correct one. You were miserable, as, thank God! few human beings are. On
the night that I dined with you in Naples you warned me of the risk I
was running in associating with Pharos and implored me to save myself.
When I knew that you were bound hand and foot to him, can you wonder
that I declined? Since then I have been permitted further opportunities
of seeing what your life with him is like. Once more you ask me to save
myself, and once more I make you this answer. If you will accompany me,
I will go; and if you do so, I swear to God that I will protect and
shield you to the best of my ability. I have many influential friends
who will count it an honour to take you into their families until
something can be arranged, and with whom you will be safe. On the other
hand, if you will not go, I pledge you my word that so long as you
remain in this man's company I will do so too. No argument will shake my
determination and no entreaty move me from the position I have taken
up."

I searched her face for some sign of acquiescence, but could find none.
It was bloodless in its pallor, and yet so beautiful that at any other
time and in any other place I should have been compelled by the love I
felt for her--a love that I now knew to be stronger than life itself--to
take her in my arms and tell her that she was the only woman in the wide
world for me, that I would protect her, not only against Pharos, but
against his master Apollyon himself. Now, however, such a confession was
impossible. Situated as we were, hemmed in by dangers on every side, to
speak of love to her would have been little better than an insult.

"What answer do you give me?" I said, seeing that she did not speak.

"Only that you are cruel," she replied. "You know my misery, and yet you
add to it. Have I not told you that I should be a happier woman if you
went?"

"You must