“I returned to town yesterday,” she answered. “But if we are to talk, had we not better go for a walk?” she suggested. Then she added, in a low, confidential whisper, “There are eager ears here.”
Nothing loath to escape from that house of mystery, I agreed to her proposal, and she let me out, after considerable trouble with a very complicated lock, which I noted could not be undone by anyone unacquainted with its secret—another suspicious circumstance.
Outside, we turned towards Theobald’s Road, and I walked beside her in the hazy glow of the London sunset, full of admiration of her beauty, her grace, and her sweetness of expression.
As we walked towards Oxford Street I told her of my desire to be, if not in public, then in secret, her friend.
“But why?” she asked, opening her splendid eyes widely.
“Because—well, because I believe we shall be good friends some day,” I said lamely, for it was on the tip of my tongue there, in that crowded street, openly to declare myself.
“We are good friends now, otherwise I would not be out walking with you here,” she remarked.
“Exactly; but there is still a stronger reason,” I said. “You will recollect that when I met you on that path across the cliffs you confessed to me your unhappiness—that in your heart there lies concealed some terrible secret which has driven you to despair, and which—”
“My secret?” she gasped, looking at me suddenly with the same expression of terror I had seen upon her face on that wet night in Harpur Street. “Who told you of my secret?”
“No one,” I said quietly. “But to me the truth is apparent, and it is for that reason that I desire to stand your friend. You recollect you spoke of your enemies, who were so strong that they had crushed you. Will you not let me render you assistance against them; may I not act on your behalf? You surely can trust me?”