"Now look here, darling," I said, "you've told me all about your Governor. How he says that you must live up here in this extraordinary place and never go into the world again. You think him mad, and yet, d'you know, I don't." "But, my heart--?" "I've got to tell you, dearest, that he has more reason than you think." She shrugged her shoulders--it was about the most graceful thing I had ever seen in my life. "But to tell me that I am to be a nun because, if I were to go back into the world, my life wouldn't be worth a moment's purchase. _Caro!_ It is madness! It cannot be anything else." I didn't quite know how to tell her, and I was considering, when she went on: "It is getting dreadful. Father cannot sleep, he prowls about this nightmare of a place all the night long." "Sweetheart," I said, "I've been making all sorts of inquiries and I've found out that your Governor is really in serious danger of assassination--or was until he built this place, to which I think the devil could hardly penetrate without an invitation. Don't think your father a coward. Remember what we saw that night in the Ritz Hotel, when I was just about to tell you that I adored you. No, I'd lay long odds, Juanita darling, that Mr. Morse is more afraid for you than for himself. And there I'll back him up every time." She laughed, and her laughter was like water falling into water in paradise! "I have you," she said; "I have father--what do I care?" "Quite so," I replied. "I think you take a very sensible view of it. The obvious thing to do is to relieve your father by coming with me to-night, while the coast is clear. Lady Brentford is in town. She will be delighted to receive you. Once out of the place, we can be free within an hour. To-morrow morning I can get a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury and we can be married. "Once that happens, I'll defy all the Santa Hermandads, and all the Mark Antony Midwinters in the world, to hurt you. And as for Mr. Morse, we'll protect him too, in a far more sensible way than--" I suppose I had been holding her rather tightly. At any rate she broke away and stood up in the center of the little room. The brightness of her face was clouded with thought. I had not risen and she stared down at me with great, smoldering eyes. "So it is true!" she said, nodding her head, "it is true, father and I are in peril, after all! Names escaped you just now, I think I have heard one of them before--" She passed her hand over her brow, like some one awaking from sleep, and I watched her, fascinated. Oh, how lovely she was at that moment, my dear, my perfect dear! "But, _caro_, _of course_ I cannot run away with you and be married. _I must_ stay with father, cannot you see that?"