"I can't tell you. He said it was necessary, so I obeyed him."
"Would you have obeyed him if he had told you to give my father the money?"
"Yes," said Montrose truthfully and unhesitatingly. "And to put it plainly, Miss Enistor, it is harder for me to keep the money than to surrender it. I don't require so large an income."
"Yet my father heard from Mr. Cane that you were poor."
"Very poor. I was starving when I first made Lady Staunton's acquaintance, Miss Enistor. My parents died when I was a child, and I was brought up by an old aunt in Edinburgh. When I was eighteen years of age she passed away, leaving me what little she had. I came to London with the idea of writing poetry and plays. But my work would not sell, and when my money came to an end, I starved until I managed to drift into journalism. Even then I only managed to keep body and soul together in a Bloomsbury garret. When I saved your aunt's life, she gave me employment as her secretary to deal with her many charities. But I assure you that she never expressed any intention of leaving her money to me. If she had, I should have objected, since her brother was alive. However, she did leave me this large income, and I was ready to give it up, until Eberstein told me it was necessary to keep it."
"I wonder why?" said Alice thoughtfully, and greatly interested in the story he had told.
"Eberstein will not tell me. But he has a good reason for what he says and I always obey him, knowing his true friendship. A few years ago I was dying of starvation and pneumonia in my attic, and he saved my life. Since then I have been with him constantly. As you believe in reincarnation, Miss Enistor, I may as well tell you that there is some tie between you and me dating from former lives. What it is I cannot say, as Eberstein refuses to explain. He brought me here to-night to meet you."
"Oh!" Alice darted a swift piercing look at the young man's earnest face and wondered if he was as guileless as he appeared to be. "How did he know that I was here?"
"He is Mrs. Barrast's doctor, you know," said Montrose simply.
The girl did not reply immediately. She was considering if there was not some conspiracy on foot to entangle her in a marriage bond. Dr. Eberstein looked kindly and sympathetic, yet for his own ends he might have brought herself and Montrose together. Was he an honest man, or a schemer? Was Montrose his victim, or his accomplice? And what had she to do with either of the two men? As she thought thus, there came a wave of that same overpowering influence which she had felt in the Tremore dining-room. It seemed to sweep away the suggestion of evil with which she had almost unconsciously credited Eberstein and his young friend. "I don't understand," she said faintly and turned white.