"Ah! That I cannot tell you," she answered; then suddenly losing all control of herself she exclaimed wildly, "The past has risen against me, to torment me, to hound me down to the very depths of hell. Ah! Willoughby, save me--you will, won't you? You are my friend. Say you are--say you will help me," she implored with clasped hands. "But what do you fear, Lady Lolita?" I asked in the hope of learning her secret. "I fear death," she cried hoarsely. "The blow has fallen, and I am lost--lost." "No, no," I said, taking her soft hand gently in mine and finding it cold, trembling in fear. "Do not anticipate the worst, whatever may be your danger." "Ah! if I could tell you all--if I only dared to tell you," she sighed. "But even then you wouldn't believe it--you couldn't." "But may I not know something of this peril of yours?" I urged. "If you tell me, I shall then know how to deal with it." "You can only serve me at great risk to yourself," was her quick reply. "In any way I can serve you, Lolita, do not hesitate to command me," I said, deeply in earnest and still holding her trembling hand in mine. By that wild look in her beautiful eyes I saw that her heart was gripped by some nameless terror, and that she was in desperation. Then, in a moment of deep sympathy, recollecting the stranger's ominous words, I added: "I love you now, Lolita, with the deepest devotion with which any man has loved." And before she was aware of it, I had raised those thin white fingers reverently to my lips and imprinted upon them a tender lingering kiss. CHAPTER THREE. WHICH IS A MYSTERY. In my hot passionate declaration I repeated my readiness to serve her, at the same time acknowledging the difference in our stations and the fear that my dream of happiness must be a vain one. She smiled very sweetly upon me, and I saw her eyes were dimmed with tears. Her lips moved, but in the first moments no sound escaped them. I had taken her by surprise, I think, for she had always regarded me as friend, and not as lover. "I thank you for your kind promise to assist me in this hour of my need," she answered at last in a voice that seemed to have strangely altered. "I know now that I enjoy your regard, although I--well, I must confess that I had no idea that, good friends that we have been all these years, you would end by really falling in love with me. You have, however, told me the truth, and a woman always respects a man for that. I know now that I have at least one firm and devoted friend." And as she spoke her fingers closed upon my hand. As I feared, I had presumed too far. I had no right to love her, I, a mere paid servant of the family, yet she had treated my confession with sweet dignity and womanly tact that so well became her, and cleverly turned my declaration of love into one of friendship.