“And you are alone in the world? My poor child! This will never do. You must let me help you if I can.”
“No, no!” she cried, this time almost fiercely. “I do not require any help. I can support myself quite well.”
“I shall have to be convinced of that before I let you go,” he answered. “London is not the sort of place for a young girl to be alone in, particularly when one is a foreigner and poor.”
“You were always kind to me,” she replied, “but I can not let you do more. Besides you are going to be married. Is that not so?”
“It is quite true,” he answered; “but how did you hear of it?”
She looked confused for a moment.
“I can not tell you,” she replied. “Perhaps I saw it in the newspapers. You are famous, and they write about you. Now I must be getting home.”
An empty cab happened to pass at that moment, and Godfrey hailed it.
“Get in,” he said, when the vehicle had drawn up beside the pavement. “I am going to see you home. This is not the hour for you to be alone in the streets.”
“No, no,” she protested, even more vehemently than before. “I can not let you do this. I can walk quite well. It is not far, and I have often done it.”