enemies."

"I really don't understand you," I said. "Do you mean to imply that
there is some conspiracy afoot against me?"

"I warn you in all seriousness," she said. "I--well, the fact is, I
came out here--I followed you out--in order to tell you this in
secret. Leave here, I beg of you; leave early to-morrow morning, and
do not allow the hotel people to know your new address. Go
somewhere--far away--and live in secret under an assumed name. Let
Owen Biddulph disappear as though the earth had swallowed him up."

"Then you are aware of my name!" I exclaimed.

"Certainly," she replied. "But do--I beg of you for your own
sake--heed my warning! Ah! it is cruel and horrible that I--of all
women--have to tell you this!"

"I always carry a revolver," I replied, "and I have long ago learned
to shoot straight."

"Be guarded always against a secret and insidious attack," she urged.
"I must go in--now that I have told you the truth."

"And do you, then, refuse to become my friend, Miss Pennington?" I
asked very earnestly. "Surely you are my friend already, because you
have told me this!"

"Yes," she answered, adding, "Ah! you do not know the real facts! You
would not ask this if you were aware of the bitter, ghastly truth. You
would not ask my friendship--nay, you would hate and curse me
instead!"

"But why?" I asked, amazed at her words. "You speak in enigmas."

She was silent again. Then her nervous fingers once more gripped my
arm, as, looking into my face, her eyes shining with a weird, unusual
light, she replied in quick, breathless sentences--

"Because--because friendship between us must never, never be; it would
be fatal to you, just as it would be fatal to me! Death--yes,
death--will come to me quickly and swiftly--perhaps to-night, perhaps
to-morrow, perhaps in a week's time. For it, I am quite prepared. All
is lost--lost to me for ever! Only have a care of yourself, I beseech
of you! Heed what I say. Escape the cruel fate which your enemies have
marked out for you--escape while there is yet time, and--and," she
faltered in a low, hoarse voice, full of emotion, "some day in the
future, perhaps, you will give a passing thought to the memory of a
woman who revealed to you the truth--who saved you from an untimely
end--the unhappy woman without a friend!"

"But I will be your friend!" I repeated.

"No. That can never be--_never_!" and she shuddered. "I dare not risk
it. Reflect--and escape--get away in sec