“What reason have they?” asked Winifred.
“I don’t care—I don’t know, they have not told me. But I believe them, and I want you to believe me. The persons who have charge of your destiny are not normal persons—more or less they have done, or are connected with wrong. There is no doubt about that. The police know it, though they cannot yet drag that wrong into the light. Do you credit what I say?”
“It is all very strange.”
“It is true. That is the point. Have you, by the way, ever seen a man called Voles?”
“Voles? No.”
“Yet that man at this moment is somewhere near you. He came in the same train with you from New York. He is always near you. He is the most intimate associate of your aunt. Think now, and tell me whether it is not a disturbing thing that you never saw this man face to face?”
“Most disturbing, if what you say is so.”
“But suppose I tell you what I firmly believe—that you have seen him; that it was his face which bent over you in your half-sleep the other night, and his voice which you heard?”
“I always thought that it was no dream,” said Winifred. “It was—not a nice face.”
“And remember, Winifred,” urged Carshaw earnestly, “that to-day and to-morrow are your last chances. You are about to be taken far away—possibly to France or England, as surely as you see those clouds. True, if you go, I shall go after you.”