“Ah, yes, because you do not yet realise your grave peril,” she said. “If only I dare be frank with you—if only I dare tell you the awful, bitter truth! Yet I can’t, and you must remain in ignorance. Your very ignorance will cause you to court danger, and at the same time to misjudge me.”
“I shall not misjudge you,” I assured her. “But at the present I am, as you say, entirely in the dark. What is it you want me to do?”
For a moment she was silent, apparently fearing to make the suggestion lest I should refuse. At last she looked straight into my face and said,—
“What I ask you to do is to make a great sacrifice in order to save me. I am in peril, Wilfrid, in a grave, terrible peril. The sword of fate hangs over me, and may fall at any instant. I must fly from here—I must fly to-night and hide—I—”
She hesitated again. Her words were an admission of her guilt. She was a murderess. That unknown man that I had left lying cold and dead beneath the trees had fallen by her hand.
“Well?” I asked, rather coldly, I fear.
“I must hide. I must efface my identity, and for certain reasons—indeed to obtain greater security I must marry.”
“Marry!” I echoed. “Well, really, Sybil, I don’t understand you in the least. Why?”
“Because I can, I hope, save myself by marrying,” she went on quickly. “To-night I am going into hiding, and not a soul must know of my whereabouts. The place best of all in which to hide oneself is London, in one of the populous working districts. They would never search for me there. As the wife of an industrious working-man I should be safe. To go abroad would be useless.”
“But why should you leave so hurriedly?” I asked her.