Return to us, therefore; accept forgiveness while there is yet time. You know who has caused this to be written. Therefore, enough!
Return and find security; remain to betray us and you shall be shot!
When Warner finished reading this outrageous missive, he looked up into Philippa's undisturbed face, and she smiled.
"When did you receive this?" he demanded.
"It came in the noon mail yesterday."
"Of course it's from Wildresse."
"Of course," she said simply. "What do you think of it?"
"I think very little of it," he replied. "Threatened people are good insurance risks. If he could have harmed you, he'd not have troubled to write you about his amiable designs on you.... It's a pity—a great pity, Philippa—that we dare not call in the police."
"If I have written, innocently, the things he says I have written and signed, it might go hard with me if he were arrested," she said.
"I know it. It can't be done—at any rate, it can't be done yet. If there were anywhere you could go—any frontier that might be a barrier of safety for you! But all Europe seems to be involved—all neutral frontiers violated—even the Grand Duchy has become a German thoroughfare.... Let me think it over, Philippa. I don't know how dangerous to you that miserable rascal can become.... But Halkett was right: as long as you are in France, it won't do to denounce Wildresse."