"Then why did you choose to go there?" I asked.
"It was not my choice at all," Delora answered. "Besides, it was not until I arrived in London that I understood exactly the nature of the intrigues against me."
"At least," I protested, "you should never have brought your niece with you. Frankly, your concerns don't interest me a snap of the fingers. It is of your niece only that I think. You have no right to leave her alone in such anxiety!"
"Nor can I see, sir," Delora answered, "that you have any better right to reproach me with it. Still, if it will shorten this discussion, I admit that if I had known how much trouble there was ahead of me I should not have brought her. I simply disliked having to disappoint her. It was a long-standing promise."
"Let that go," I answered. "I have told you that I have handed in my commission. I have nothing more to do with you or your schemes, whatever they may be. But I came here to find you and to tell you this one thing. Felicia says that you are her uncle, she scouts the idea of your being an impostor, she speaks of you as tenderly and affectionately as a girl well could. That is all very well. Yet, in the face of it, I am here to impress this upon you. I love your niece, Mr. Delora,—some day or other I mean to make her my wife,—and I will not have her dragged into anything which is either disreputable or against the law."
"Has my niece encouraged you?" Delora asked calmly.
"Not in the least," I answered. "She has been kind enough to give me to understand that she cares a little, and there the matter ends. Nothing more could be said between us in this state of uncertainty. But I came here for this one purpose. I came to tell you that if by any chance Felicia should be mistaken, if you play her false in any way, if you seek to embroil her in your schemes, or to do anything by means of which she could suffer, I shall first of all shake the life out of your body, and then I shall go to Scotland Yard and tell them how much I know."
"About Mr. Tapilow, also?" Delora asked, with a sneer.
"Do you think I am afraid to take the punishment for my own follies?" I asked indignantly. "If I believed that, I would go and give myself up to-morrow. Louis can give me away if he will, or you. I don't care a snap of the fingers. But what I want you to understand is this. Felicia is, I presume, your niece. I should have been inclined to have doubted it, but I cannot disbelieve her own word. I think myself that it is brutal to have brought such a child here and to have left her alone—"
"She is not alone," Delora interrupted stiffly. "She has a companion."