“You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!” she replied; “but I will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these Virginia hills does not please me.”
“How do you classify me, please—with friends or acquaintances?”
He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone.
“I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life to warn me that I am in danger?”
“If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing. It makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are.”
“You are explicit!” he laughed. “I don’t hesitate to tell you that I value your life much higher than you do.”
“That is quite unnecessary. It may amuse you to know that, as I am a person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution of—of—what might be called the Armitage riddle.”
“Oh; I’m a riddle, am I?”
“Not to me, I assure you! You are only the object of some one’s enmity, and there’s something about murder that is—that isn’t exactly nice! It’s positively unesthetic.”
She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words.