"How dare you speak to me like this!" cried Dora, clenching her hands; "what right have you to terrify me with vague hints? I demand an explanation!"
"You will never obtain one--from me," said Edermont in a quavering voice; "and if you are wise you will seek one nowhere else."
"I shall ask Allen."
"He is bound by a promise to me not to tell you."
"Then, I shall question Lady Burville."
Edermont rose with a bound, and gripped her arm with a strength of which she had not thought him capable.
"Girl," he cried earnestly, "do not go near that woman! She is an evil woman--one who has brought harm in the past, and will bring harm in the future. When I saw her in church it was no wonder that I turned faint. She has hunted me down; and she brings trouble in her train. Leave me to fight my own battles, Dora, and come not into the fray. If you cross her path she will show you such mercy as she has shown me. I implore you to say nothing, to think nothing. If you disobey me I cannot save you; you must be your own salvation."
Throughout this strange speech he kept his eyes fixed upon her face. When it was ended he dropped her arm and turned away.
"Leave me now," he said faintly; "I--I am not myself."
The poor creature seemed so exhausted that it would have been absolute cruelty to have questioned him further, and, anxious as Dora was to do so, she was moved from sheer pity to spare him. Without a word she left the room, closing the door after her, and went slowly downstairs to the hall. Here she paused and considered.