“I will go with you,” replied the stranger; “but I warn you I will not be arrested: my liberty is dear to me, my life I hold cheap—so cheap that even now, unarmed as I am, and unequal to you in muscular strength, I am tempted again to rush on you and try the chances of a death-struggle.”
“I would advise you not to do so,” returned Lewis calmly; “besides,” he added, “I may be more disposed to befriend you than you are aware of—it is with no hostile purpose I thus force you to accompany me, believe me.”
“I will trust you,” was the reply. “Your looks and words have, I know not why, a strange power over me—you must possess the gift of the Malocchio, which these Italians believe in—it was your glance, far more than your pistol, which kept me silent in the chamber of meeting.”
During almost the whole of this conversation they had been walking side by side in the direction of the street in which Lewis’s studio was situated, and in another five minutes they reached it.
“Have I your word of honour that you will not again attempt my life, or seek to escape till our interview is concluded?” asked Lewis.
“You have,” was the concise reply.
“Follow me, then,” continued Lewis; and drawing a key from his pocket, he unfastened the door, entered, closed it again, and accompanied by the stranger, led the way through the painting-room into his study.