“Ah! if I could tell you all—if I only dared to tell you,” she sighed. “But even then you wouldn’t believe it—you couldn’t.”
“But may I not know something of this peril of yours?” I urged. “If you tell me, I shall then know how to deal with it.”
“You can only serve me at great risk to yourself,” was her quick reply.
“In any way I can serve you, Lolita, do not hesitate to command me,” I said, deeply in earnest and still holding her trembling hand in mine. By that wild look in her beautiful eyes I saw that her heart was gripped by some nameless terror, and that she was in desperation. Then, in a moment of deep sympathy, recollecting the stranger’s ominous words, I added: “I love you now, Lolita, with the deepest devotion with which any man has loved.”
And before she was aware of it, I had raised those thin white fingers reverently to my lips and imprinted upon them a tender lingering kiss.
Chapter Three.
Which is a Mystery.
In my hot passionate declaration I repeated my readiness to serve her, at the same time acknowledging the difference in our stations and the fear that my dream of happiness must be a vain one.