“Be guarded always against a secret and insidious attack,” she urged. “I must go in—now that I have told you the truth.”
“And do you, then, refuse to become my friend, Miss Pennington?” I asked very earnestly. “Surely you are my friend already, because you have told me this!”
“Yes,” she answered, adding, “Ah! you do not know the real facts! You would not ask this if you were aware of the bitter, ghastly truth. You would not ask my friendship—nay, you would hate and curse me instead!”
“But why?” I asked, amazed at her words. “You speak in enigmas.”
She was silent again. Then her nervous fingers once more gripped my arm, as, looking into my face, her eyes shining with a weird, unusual light, she replied in quick, breathless sentences—
“Because—because friendship between us must never, never be; it would be fatal to you, just as it would be fatal to me! Death—yes, death—will come to me quickly and swiftly—perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps in a week’s time. For it, I am quite prepared. All is lost—lost to me for ever! Only have a care of yourself, I beseech of you! Heed what I say. Escape the cruel fate which your enemies have marked out for you—escape while there is yet time, and—and,” she faltered in a low, hoarse voice, full of emotion, “some day in the future, perhaps, you will give a passing thought to the memory of a woman who revealed to you the truth—who saved you from an untimely end—the unhappy woman without a friend!”
“But I will be your friend!” I repeated.
“No. That can never be—never!” and she shuddered. “I dare not risk it. Reflect—and escape—get away in secret, and take care that you are not followed. Remember, however, we can never be friends. Such a course would be fatal—yes, alas! fatal!”
Instinctively she put out her tiny white hand in frank farewell. Then, when I had held it for a second in my own, she turned and, drawing her shawl about her, hurried back to the big hotel.
Utterly dumbfounded, I stood for a few seconds dazed and wondering, the sweet odour of Rose d’Orsay filling my nostrils. What did she know?