“Yes,” she responded, looking around her, “I’ve known it all my life. Every house, every field, every tree is familiar to me, for here I spent my happiest days,” and a slight sigh escaped her as her memory ran back.
We were walking together slowly along a path beside the winding Welland. She knew the way, and had led me through a gate and across a small strip of pasture down to the river. We were safer from observation there than upon the open highway, she said.
After we had been chatting some time she suddenly grew serious, and said: —
“Do you know, Doctor Pickering, why I’ve come to you to-night?”
“No, but I hoped it was to resume our pleasant companionship,” I said.
“It was to warn you.”
“Of what?”
“Of your enemies.”
“You mean those men Bennett and Purvis,” I said, hoping to learn something from her. “Purvis is your uncle, is he not?”
She glanced at me quickly, and responded in the affirmative.