of the danger is which you apprehend?"

"There would be nothing gained by your knowing. Indeed, you would hardly
understand it if I told you. I must bid you good day now, for I have
stayed with you too long. Remember, I count upon you as one of the
Cloomber garrison now."

"One other thing, sir," I said hurriedly, for he was turning away, "I
hope that you will not be angry with your daughter for anything which I
have told you. It was for my sake that she kept it all secret from you."

"All right," he said, with his cold, inscrutable smile. "I am not such
an ogre in the bosom of my family as you seem to think. As to this
marriage question, I should advise you as a friend to let it drop
altogether, but if that is impossible I must insist that it stand over
completely for the present. It is impossible to say what unexpected turn
events may take. Good-bye."

He plunged into the wood and was quickly out of sight among the dense
plantation.

Thus ended this extraordinary interview, in which this strange man
had begun by pointing a loaded pistol at my breast and had ended,
by partially acknowledging the possibility of my becoming his future
son-in-law. I hardly knew whether to be cast down or elated over it.

On the one hand he was likely, by keeping a closer watch over his
daughter, to prevent us from communicating as freely as we had done
hitherto. Against this there was the advantage of having obtained an
implied consent to the renewal of my suit at some future date. On the
whole, I came to the conclusion as I walked thoughtfully home that I had
improved my position by the incident.

But this danger--this shadowy, unspeakable danger--which appeared to
rise up at every turn, and to hang day and night over the towers of
Cloomber! Rack my brain as I would, I could not conjure up any solution
to the problem which was not puerile and inadequate.

One fact struck me as being significant. Both the father and the son had
assured me, independently of each other, that if I were told what the
peril was, I would hardly realise its significance. How strange and
bizarre must the fear be which can scarcely be expressed in intelligible
language!

I held up my hand in the darkness before I turned to sleep that night,
and I swore that no power of man or devil should ever weaken my love for
the woman whose pure heart I had had the good fortune to win.

CHAPTER VII. OF CORPORAL RUFUS SMITH AND HIS COMING TO CLOOMBER

In makin