“I really don’t know what you mean?” I cried. “I have only seen you once before, on that wet night in London. Yet you actually accuse me of being your enemy?”
“No,” she said in a hard voice. “My words are not an accusation. The fault, I feel certain, was not your own; but you might easily have encompassed my death without ever knowing it.”
“I really don’t understand!” I exclaimed. “Will you not speak more plainly? To think that I have ever been your enemy, consciously or unconsciously, for a single moment, pains me, for such a thing is farthest from my thoughts. I am only desirous of being your good and devoted friend. We both have enemies—you and I. Therefore, if we join forces in perfect confidence, we may succeed in combating them.”
“Then I can only presume you have followed me here in order to put this proposal to me?” she said in a tone of indignation.
“I have certainly not followed you,” was my quick response. “Indeed, I believed that it was you who had followed me! I am staying at Sheringham, and had not the least idea you were in the neighbourhood.”
“The same with me,” she replied. “My father and I are staying at my uncle’s, Lord Aldoborough’s, at Saxlingham, and I strolled over here this evening as far as the sea. Then our meeting must have been quite accidental.”
“When did you arrive?”
“Yesterday.”
“And your father may have come down here in order to be able to watch me?” I suggested.
She did not reply, although her troubled breast heaved and fell quickly in agitation.