"Of the folly of flirtation."
I sprang to my feet indignantly.
"You insult me!" I cried. "I will bear it no longer. Please let me pass!"
"I shall not allow you to leave until I have finished," he answered determinedly. "You think that I am not in earnest, but I tell you I am. Your whole future depends upon your acceptance of my suggestion."
"And what is your suggestion, pray?"
"That you should no longer regard old Mr. Keppel as your possible husband."
"I have never regarded him as such," I responded, with a contemptuous laugh. "But supposing that I did—supposing that he offered me marriage, what then?"
"Then a disaster would fall upon you. It is of that disaster that I came here to-night to warn you," he said, speaking quickly in a hoarse voice. "Recollect that you must never become his wife—never!"
"If I did, what harm could possibly befall me?" I inquired eagerly, for the stranger's prophetic words were, to say the least, exceedingly strange.
He was silent for a moment, then said slowly: