“You must let me save you,” she exclaimed clasping her hands.
“In what way?”
“You must let me kill you here, to-night.
“Don’t you understand?” she pursued breathlessly. “It is absolutely necessary for your safety, perhaps for the safety of both of us, that they should think I have carried out my instructions. You must appear to die. Then they will no longer concern themselves about you, and you will be able to assume some other personality without being suspected.”
The scheme appealed to me strongly, all the more that it seemed as though it could be made to fit in very well with my own plans.
“You are a clever woman, Sophia,” I said cautiously. “How do you purpose to carry out your scheme? They will want to see my corpse, I suppose.”
She drew out the little key I have already described.
“Come this way.”
I followed her through the bedroom as before to the door of the locked oratory.