"Oh, but you must," she said beseechingly. "I am in no danger. Really, I am in no danger."
"I don't believe you," I said bluntly. "Does Sir Henry Tregattock know where you are?"
She looked confused "He—he thinks I am with friends," she stammered. "I am going back there in a day or so. I will go directly you have disappeared."
"You'll do nothing of the kind," I said. "If I go, you'll come with me. I won't stir a step from Woodford unless it's to take you back to London."
She gazed at me despairingly. "What's the use?" she cried. "They will only kill us both."
"Will they?" I said. "At present, I think they've got their hands full in trying to kill me."
She shook her head. "The League never fails. It's only a matter of time. Within a week, you will be dead—you and your friend too. Oh, you don't know what danger you are in. Listen. There were four others besides Prado and Lopez whom the Council condemned, and every one of them has been killed since. You know what happened to Lopez."
"I don't," I said. "I know nothing about the infernal business except that they've bungled me three times, and that somehow or other they've managed to get hold of the wretched Milford. I should stick it out now in any case, if only for the sake of revenging him."
"Milford," she repeated, looking at me in horror. "Is that the man they tried to poison?"
"Yes," I said. "He vanished two days ago, and Heaven knows what's happened to him by now."