“Because—ah! have I not already explained the reason why—why I dare not allow you to show undue friendship towards me?”

“Well, tell me frankly,” I said, “who is this secret enemy of mine?”

She was silent. In that hesitation I suspected an intention to deceive.

“Is it against your own father that you are warning me?” I exclaimed in hesitation. “You fear him, evidently, and you urge me to leave here and return to England. Why should I not remain here in defiance?”

“In some cases defiance is distinctly injudicious,” she remarked. “It is so in this. Your only safety is in escape. I can tell you no more.”

[Pg 65]

“These words of yours, Miss Pennington, are remarkably strange,” I said. “Surely our position is most curious. You are my friend, and yet you conceal the identity of my enemy.”

She only shrugged her shoulders, without any reply falling from her lips.

“Will you not take my advice and get back to England at once?” she asked very seriously, as she turned to me a few minutes later. “I have suggested this in your own interests.”

“But why should I go in fear of this unknown enemy?” I asked. “What harm have I done? Why should any one be my bitter enemy?”

“Ah, how do I know?” she cried in despair. “We all of us have enemies where we least suspect them. Sometimes the very friend we trust most implicitly reveals himself as our worst antagonist. Truly one should always pause and ponder deeply before making a friend.”

“You are perfectly right,