ith a
certain vague horror. I felt that he must be even a worse man than I
had taken him for if he had so completely forfeited the loyalty of his
own nearest and dearest.

'Your silence is a sufficient answer,' said she, as I hesitated for a
reply. 'I do not know how you came to meet him last night, or what
passed between you, for we do not share each other's confidences.
I think, however, that you have read him aright. Now I have something
to ask you. You had a letter from him inviting you to leave England and
to come here, had you not?'

'Yes, I had.'

'Did you observe nothing on the outside?'

I thought of those two sinister words which had puzzled me so much.

'What! it was you who warned me not to come?'

'Yes, it was I. I had no other means of doing it.'

'But why did you do it?'

'Because I did not wish you to come here.'

'Did you think that I would harm you?'

She sat silent for a few seconds like one who is afraid of saying too
much. When her answer came it was a very unexpected one:

'I was afraid that you would be harmed.'

'You think that I am in danger here?'

'I am sure of it.'

'You advise me to leave?'

'Without losing an instant.'

'From whom is the danger then?'

Again she hesitated, and then, with a reckless motion like one who
throws prudence to the winds, she turned upon me.

'It is from my father,' said she.

'But why should he harm me?'

'That is for your sagacity to discover.'

'But I assure you, mademoiselle, that in this matter you misjudge him,'
said I. 'As it happens, he interfered to save my life last night.'

'To save your life! From whom?'

'From two conspirators whose plans I had chanced to discover.'

'Conspirators!' She looked at me in surprise.

'They would have killed me if he had not intervened.'

'It is not his interest that you should be harmed yet awhile. He had
reasons for wishing you to come to Castle Grosbois. But I have been
very frank with you, and I wish you to be equally so with me. Does it
happen--does it happen that during your youth in England you have ever--you
have ever had an affair of the heart?'

Everything which this cousin of mine said appeared to me to be stranger
than the last, and this question, coming at the end of so serious a
conversation, was the strangest of all. But frankness begets frankness,
and I did not hesitate.

'I have left the very best and truest girl in the world behind me in
England,' said I.