I felt her shudder beneath my touch, while her big blue eyes were downcast--downcast in shame.
"No. I cannot explain," she replied. "If you knew, M'sieur Vidal, how horrible, how terrible all this is for me, you would not press your question."
"But I do--in your interests," I said with deep earnestness. "I want to help you to escape from these scoundrels--I want to stand as your friend."
"My friend!" she exclaimed blankly. "My friend--ah! that you can never be."
"You would not wish to cultivate my acquaintance further, M'sieur Vidal, if--if you were aware of the actual truth. Besides, this friendship which you have shown to me may, in itself, prove fatal to you. If you do not exercise the greatest precaution, your reward for saving me, as you did that night at Balmaclellan, will be death!"
"You are apprehensive on my account?" I asked, wondering whether she were really in earnest--or whether beneath her strange warning there lay some subtle motive.
"Yes," was her frank response. "Take great care, or death will come to you at a moment when you least expect it."
For an instant I was silent. Her warning was truly a curious and disconcerting one, for I knew the dangerous character of Jules Jeanjean. That if he threatened, he meant action.
"I do not care for myself, Lola," I said at last. "I am thinking how I can protect you, and rescue you from the hands of these unscrupulous men."
"You cannot," she declared, with a hard, fixed look of desperation. "No, only be careful of yourself, and, at the same time, dismiss me from your thoughts. I--I am unworthy of your regard," she murmured, her voice choked by a sob. "Alas, entirely unworthy!"
"No, no," I urged. "I will not allow you to speak like that, Lola. Ever since you entered my room, on that well-remembered night in Scotland, I have wondered how best I could assist you to lead an honest life; how I could----"
"I can accept no further assistance from you, M'sieur Vidal," she interposed, in a quivering voice. "I repeat that I am utterly unworthy," she cried, and shivered with despair, as she stood erect before me. "And--and--if you only knew the truth--the terrible truth of the past--you would at once, I know, turn and discard me--nay, you would probably ring for the waiter and hand me over to the police without either compunction or regret."