"Look here," he said. "I want you to tell me something. I don't know what sort of a fellow you think I am, though I fancy you don't like me much. But you're not afraid of me, are you? You know I'm to be trusted?"
It was her single chance of revenge, and she took it. "I have my father's word for it," she said.
He nodded thoughtfully as if unaware of the thrust. "Yes, your father knows me. And so"—he smiled at her suddenly—"you are ready to trust me on his recommendation? You are ready to follow me blindfold through danger if I give you my hand to hold?"
She felt a sharp chill strike her heart. What was it he was asking of her? What did those words of his portend?
"I don't know," she said. "I don't see that it makes much difference how I feel."
"Well, it does," he assured her. "And that is exactly what I have come to talk about. Miss Roscoe, will you leave the fort with me, and escape in disguise? I have thought it all out, and it can be done without much difficulty. I do not need to tell you that the idea has your father's full approval."
They were her father's own words, but at sound of them she shrank and shivered, in sheer horror at the coolness with which they were uttered. He might have been asking her to stroll with him in the leafy quiet of some English lane.
Could it be, she asked herself incredulously, could it be that her father had ever sanctioned and approved so ghastly a risk for her? She put her hand to her temples. Her brain was reeling. How could she do this thing? How could she have permitted it to be even suggested to her? And then, swift through her tortured mind flashed his words: "There will be an end. I have had to face it to-night." Was it this that he had meant? Was it for this that he had been preparing her?
With a muffled exclamation she rose, trembling in every limb. "I can't!" she cried piteously, "oh, I can't! Please go away!"
It might have been the frightened prayer of a child, so beseeching was it, so full of weakness. But Nick Ratcliffe heard it unmoved. He waited a few seconds till she came to a stand by the table, her back towards him. Then with a sudden quiet movement he rose and followed her.