"That certainly is my intention," she answered. Her clear eyes were upon him, and beneath her steady gaze he shrank and trembled. "And if I live you will remain as witness of my agony, and of my degradation?" he said. "If I live you will gossip, and tell them of all that has escaped my lips, of my despair--of my contemplated suicide!" "I have seen all, and I have heard all," the girl answered. "But no word of it will pass my lips. With me your secret is sacred." "But how came you here at this hour?" he demanded in a fiercer tone. "As I've already told you, I came to get a book before retiring, and the moment I had entered you came in. Because I feared to be discovered I hid behind the curtains." "You came here to spy upon me?" he cried angrily. "Come, confess the truth!" The curious thought had crossed his mind that she had been sent there by Claudia. "I chanced to be present here entirely by accident," she answered. "But by good fortune I have been able to rescue you from death." He bowed to her with stiff politeness, for he suspected her of eavesdropping. He felt that he disliked her, and in no half-hearted fashion. Besides, he recollected the prophetic warning of the colonel. It was more than strange that he should discover her there, in that room where his valuable papers were lodged. He scented mystery in her action, and fiercely resented this unwarrantable intrusion upon his privacy. "My own behaviour is my own affair, Miss Mortimer," he said in a determined voice. "Yes, all but suicide," she assented. "That is an affair which concerns your friends." "Of whom you are scarcely one," he observed meaningly. "No," she replied, stretching forth her hand until it rested upon his arm. "You entirely misunderstand me, Mr. Chisholm. As in this affair you have already involuntarily confided in me, I beg of you to rely upon my discretion and secrecy, and to allow me to become your friend." CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. REQUIRES SOLUTION. With his face to the intruder, Chisholm stood leaning with his hand upon the back of a chair. "Friends are to me useless, Miss Mortimer," he answered her. "Others perhaps are useless, but I may prove to be the exception," she said very gravely. "You want a friend, and I am ready to become yours." "Your offer is a kind one," he replied, still regarding her with suspicion, for he could not divine the real reason of her visit there, or why she had concealed herself, unless she had done so to learn, if possible, his secret. "I thank you for it, but cannot accept it." "But, surely, you do not intend to perform such a cowardly act as to take your own life," she said in a measured tone of voice, looking at him with her wide-open eyes. "It is my duty to prevent you from committing such a mad action as that." "I quite admit that it would be mad," he said. "But the victim of circumstances can only accept the inevitable."