--providing that you assist me," I said.

She held her breath, and remained silent. She evidently feared them.

I tried to obtain from her some details of the occurrences of that
night of horror, but she refused to satisfy my curiosity. Apparently
she feared to incriminate herself. Could it be possible that she had
only learnt at the last moment that it was I who was embraced in the
next room by that fatal chair!

Yet it was all so puzzling, so remarkable. Surely a girl with such a
pure, open, innocent face could not be the accomplice of dastardly
criminals! She was their friend. That much she had admitted to me. But
her friendship with them was made under compulsion. She urged me not
to go to the police. Why?

Did she fear that she herself would be implicated in a series of dark
and terrible crimes?

"Where is your father?" I inquired presently.

"In Scotland," was her prompt reply. "I heard from him at the
Caledonian Hotel, at Edinburgh, last Friday. I am staying here with
Mr. Shuttleworth until his return."

Was it not strange that she should be guest of a quiet-mannered
country parson, if she were actually the accomplice of a pair of
criminals! I felt convinced that Shuttleworth knew the truth--that he
could reveal a very remarkable story--if he only would.

"Your father is a friend of Mr. Shuttleworth--eh?" I asked.

She nodded in the affirmative. Then she stood with her gaze fixed
thoughtfully upon the sunlit lawn outside.

Mystery was written upon her fair countenance. She held a dread secret
which she was determined not to reveal. She knew of those awful
crimes committed in that dark house in Bayswater, but her intention
seemed to be to shield at all hazards her dangerous "friends."

"Sylvia," I said tenderly at last, again taking her hand in mine, "why
cannot you be open and frank with me?" She allowed her hand to lie
soft and inert in mine, sighing the while, her gaze still fixed beyond
as though her thoughts were far away. "I love you," I whispered.
"Cannot you see how you puzzle me?--for you seem to be my friend at
one moment, and at the next the accomplice of my enemies."

"I have told you that you must never love me, Mr. Biddulph," was her
low reply, as she withdrew her hand slowly, but very firmly.

"Ah! no," I cried. "Do not take offence at my words. I'm aware that
I'm a hopeless blunderer in love. All I know, Sylvia, is that my only
thought is of you. And I--I've wondered whether you, on