I sat regarding her, bewildered by these conjectures.
I saw that I must get her to say more.
“At least you have come to aid me,” I protested. “You have given me a warning for which I cannot be sufficiently grateful.”
“If you believe it is a genuine one,” she retorted. Already she had divined my difficulties and doubts.
“I do not doubt that you mean it genuinely,” I hastened to respond. “There is, of course, the possibility that you yourself have been deceived.”
“Ah!”
She looked up at me in what I could not think was other than real surprise.
“You think so?” she cried eagerly. The next moment her head drooped again. “No, no. I have known them too long. They have never trifled with me before. Believe me, Monsieur, when they told me that you were to be murdered they were not joking with me.”
“But they might have meant to use you for the purpose of terrifying me.”
She stared at me in unaffected astonishment.