I want to warn you of a
great danger that threatens you, Maxine. Perhaps, late as it is, I could
save you from it if you'd let me."
"Save me from what?" I asked temporising. "You're very mysterious, Count
Godensky. And I'm Mademoiselle de Renzie except to my very intimate
friends."
"I am your friend, always. Maybe you will even permit me to speak of
myself as your 'intimate friend' when I have done what I hope to do for
you in--in the matter of a certain document which has disappeared."
I was quivering all over. But I had not lost hope yet; I think that some
women, feeling as I did, would have fainted. But it would have been
better for me to die and be out of my troubles for ever, than to let
myself faint and show Godensky that he had struck home.
"Be quiet. Be cool. Be brave now, if never again," I said to myself. And
my voice sounded perfectly natural as I exclaimed: "Oh, the 'document'
again. The one you spoke about when we first met to-night. You rouse my
curiosity. But I don't in the least know what you mean."
"The loss of it is known," he said.
"Ah, it's a lost document?"
"As you will be lost, Maxine, if you don't come to me for the help I'm
only too glad to give--on conditions.
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