"I cannot! I cannot! Please do not ask me!"
She was breathless from her flight and seemed to be trembling. From behind the cloud her eyes shone brilliantly, mysteriously.
I was sorely puzzled. The whole incident was bizarre — indeed, it had in it something of the uncanny. Yet I could not detain the girl against her will. That she went in apprehension of something, of someone, was evident.
Past the head of the passage surged the noisy realities of Fleet Street. There were men there in quest of news; men who would have given much for such a story as this in which I was becoming entangled. Yet a story more tantalizingly incomplete could not well be imagined.
I knew that I stood upon the margin of an arena wherein strange adversaries warred to a strange end. But a mist was over all. Here, beside me, was one who could disperse the mist — and would not. Her one anxiety seemed to be to escape.
Suddenly she raised her veil; and I looked fully into the only really violet eyes I had ever beheld. Mentally, I started. For the face framed in the snowy fur was the most bewitchingly lovely imaginable. One rebellious lock of wonderful hair swept across the white brow. It was brown hair, with an incomprehensible sheen in the high lights that suggested the heart of a blood-red rose.
"Oh," she cried, "promise me that you will never breathe a word to any one about my visit!"
"I promise willingly," I said; "but can you give me no hint?"
"Honestly, truly, I cannot, dare not, say more! Only promise that you will do as I ask!"
Since I could perceive no alternative—