.

"You must go away--at once--I came to tell you that you can not stay
here."

"But it is unfair to accept any warning from you! You are too generous,
too kind,"--he began.

"It is not generosity or kindness, but this danger that follows you--it
is an evil thing and it must not find you here. It is impossible that
such a thing can be in America. But you must go--you must seek the law's
aid--"

"How do you know I dare--"

"I don't know--that you dare!"

"I know that you have a great heart and that I love you," he said.

She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps.

"I can't be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr.
Armitage. If you knew why I came--"

"If I dared think or believe or hope--"

"You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!" she replied; "but I
will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity. The idea
of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these
Virginia hills does not please me."

"How do you classify me, please--with friends or acquaintances?"

He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone.

"I am John Armitage. That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life
to warn me that I am in danger?"

"If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing. It
makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are."

"You are explicit!" he laughed. "I don't hesitate to tell you that I
value your life much higher than you do."

"That is quite unnecessary. It may amuse you to know that, as I am a
person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution
of--of--what might be called the Armitage riddle."

"Oh; I'm a riddle, am I?"

"Not to me, I assure you! You are only the object of some one's enmity,
and there's something about murder that is--that isn't exactly nice! It's
positively unesthetic."

She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words.

"You are amazingly impersonal. You would save a man's life without caring
in the least what manner of man he may be."

"You put it rather flatly, but that's about the truth of the matter. Do
you know, I am almost afraid--"

"Not of me, I hope--"

"Certainly not. But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit
of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in
mystifying people as to your identity."

"That is unkind,--that is unkind," and he spoke wi