"Permanent banishment!" laughed Forrester. But immediately his face grew grave. Why did she want him to go away? Did she really feel a personal interest in him, and desire to save him from the retribution she knew was sure to come, or had he actually become a menace to the rogues who apparently held her allegiance? Did this advice come from her heart, or had she been instructed to warn him? Forrester was confused in a tangle of hopes, doubts and conjectures. Then a passionate longing for the girl surged within him. In spite of his suspicions and the enigmatic occurrences in which she was a prominent figure, he knew that he felt a restfulness and enjoyment in her company that was inexplicable. Always when he was near her it seemed as if he had reached the end of a difficult journey. Despite their short acquaintance Forrester knew that he was deeply and irretrievably in love. With his usual impulsiveness he swung his chair to face hers and burst out: "Mary, I love you!" The girl regarded him steadily, a serious, searching look in her brown eyes that held Forrester fascinated and for the moment incapable of further speech. Then she broke the spell. "How can you," she asked, "in so short a time?" "Mary, I am old enough to know my mind and heart. I have danced and dined and flirted with the women of two continents without a desire for any one of them. But from the moment I saw you, I wanted you—just you. Sometimes love may grow as the result of long friendship or close association; but when a man meets his real mate he knows it—instantly." "Robert," said the girl, timidly, and Forrester thrilled at the sound of this name on her lips for the first time. It showed at least a partial victory. "The fate that has so strangely thrown us together still holds us in its hands. Both of us are entangled in the meshes of a malignant force and until such time as fate relinquishes its present hold upon us I cannot give you the answer you are seeking." This admission from Mary Sturtevant startled Forrester. Yet its greatest effect upon him was to further strengthen his resolve to pull her back from the black pit of disaster before it was too late. "I have known from the first that some hidden influence controlled you," imparted Forrester. "It is that knowledge which impelled me to disclose my feelings toward you so soon. I want to save you from these people who are dragging you down. I want to save you from yourself. If you will marry me, now, we can go away and leave this hideous nightmare behind." As Forrester made this statement a peculiar expression drifted over the girl’s face. Then her eyes sparkled as she extended her hand and laid it caressingly upon one of his which grasped the arm of her chair. "Do you think that I am involved in this affair of the ’Friends of the Poor’—that I have guilty knowledge of it?" she asked.