Part 8 (1/2)
”In some cases defiance is distinctly injudicious,” she remarked. ”It is so in this. Your only safety is in escape. I can tell you no more.”
”These words of yours, Miss Pennington, are remarkably strange,” I said. ”Surely our position is most curious. You are my friend, and yet you conceal the ident.i.ty of my enemy.”
She only shrugged her shoulders, without any reply falling from her lips.
”Will you not take my advice and get back to England at once?” she asked very seriously, as she turned to me a few minutes later. ”I have suggested this in your own interests.”
”But why should I go in fear of this unknown enemy?” I asked. ”What harm have I done? Why should any one be my bitter enemy?”
”Ah, how do I know?” she cried in despair. ”We all of us have enemies where we least suspect them. Sometimes the very friend we trust most implicitly reveals himself as our worst antagonist. Truly one should always pause and ponder deeply before making a friend.”
”You are perfectly right,” I remarked. ”A fierce enemy is always better than a false friend. Yet I would dearly like to know what I have done to merit antagonism. Where has your father gone?”
”To Brescia, I believe--to meet his friends.”
”Who are they?”
”His business friends. I only know them very slightly; they are interested in mining properties. They meet at intervals. The last time he met them was in Stockholm a month ago.”
This struck me as curious. Why should he meet his business friends so clandestinely--why should they come at night in a car to cross-roads?
But I told her nothing of what I had witnessed. I decided to keep my knowledge to myself.
”The boat leaves at two o'clock,” she said, after a pause, her hand upon her breast as though to stay the wild beating of her heart. ”Will you not take my advice and leave by that? Go to Milan, and then straight on to England,” she urged in deep earnestness, her big, wide-open eyes fixed earnestly upon mine.
”No, Miss Pennington,” I replied promptly; ”the fact is, I do not feel disposed to leave here just at present. I prefer to remain--and to take the risk, whatever it may be.”
”But why?” she cried, for we were standing at the end of the terrace, and out of hearing.
”Because you are in need of a friend--because you have admitted that you, too, are in peril. Therefore I have decided to remain near you.”
”No,” she cried breathlessly. ”Ah! you do not know the great risk you are running! You must go--do go, Mr. Biddulph--go, for--_for my sake_!”
I shook my head.
”I have no fear of myself,” I declared. ”I am anxious on your behalf.”
”Have no thought of me,” she cried. ”Leave, and return to England.”
”And see you no more--eh?”
”If you will leave to-day, I--I will see you in England--perhaps.”
”Perhaps!” I cried. ”That is not a firm promise.”
”Then, if you really wish,” she replied in earnestness, ”I will promise. I'll promise anything. I'll promise to see you in England--when the danger has pa.s.sed, if--if disaster has not already fallen upon me,” she added in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.
”But my place is here--near you,” I declared. ”To fly from danger would be cowardly. I cannot leave you.”