“How do you know I dare—­”

“I don’t know—­that you dare!”

“I know that you have a great heart and that I love you,” he said.

She turned quickly toward the bridge as though to retrace her steps.

“I can’t be paid for a slight, a very slight service by fair words, Mr. Armitage.  If you knew why I came—­”

“If I dared think or believe or hope—­”

“You will dare nothing of the kind, Mr. Armitage!” she replied; “but I will tell you, that I came out of ordinary Christian humanity.  The idea of friends, of even slight acquaintances, being assassinated in these Virginia hills does not please me.”

“How do you classify me, please—­with friends or acquaintances?”

He laughed; then the gravity of what she was doing changed his tone.

“I am John Armitage.  That is all you know, and yet you hazard your life to warn me that I am in danger?”

“If you called yourself John Smith I should do exactly the same thing.  It makes not the slightest difference to me who or what you are.”

“You are explicit!” he laughed.  “I don’t hesitate to tell you that I value your life much higher than you do.”

“That is quite unnecessary.  It may amuse you to know that, as I am a person of little curiosity, I am not the least concerned in the solution of—­of—­what might be called the Armitage riddle.”

“Oh; I’m a riddle, am I?”

“Not to me, I assure you!  You are only the object of some one’s enmity, and there’s something about murder that is—­that isn’t exactly nice!  It’s positively unesthetic.”

She had begun seriously, but laughed at the absurdity of her last words.

“You are amazingly impersonal.  You would save a man’s life without caring in the least what manner of man he may be.”

“You put it rather flatly, but that’s about the truth of the matter.  Do you know, I am almost afraid—­”

“Not of me, I hope—­”

“Certainly not.  But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in mystifying people as to your identity.”

“That is unkind,—­that is unkind,” and he spoke without resentment, but softly, with a falling cadence.

He suddenly threw down the hat he had held in his hand, and extended his arms toward her.

“You are not unkind or unjust.  You have a right to know who I am and what I am doing here.  It seems an impertinence to thrust my affairs upon you; but if you will listen I should like to tell you—­it will take but a moment—­why and what—­”

“Please do not!  As I told you, I have no curiosity in the matter.  I can’t allow you to tell me; I really don’t want to know!”

“I am willing that every one should know—­to-morrow—­or the day after—­not later.”

She lifted her head, as though with the earnestness of some new thought.