strange emergency.

"You may trust me for any harmless purpose," I said. "If it
troubles you to explain your strange situation to me, don't think
of returning to the subject again. I have no right to ask you for
any explanations. Tell me how I can help you; and if I can, I
will."

"You are very kind, and I am very, very thankful to have met you."
The first touch of womanly tenderness that I had heard from her
trembled in her voice as she said the words; but no tears
glistened in those large, wistfully attentive eyes of hers, which
were still fixed on me. "I have only been in London once before,"
she went on, more and more rapidly, "and I know nothing about that
side of it, yonder. Can I get a fly, or a carriage of any kind?
Is it too late? I don't know. If you could show me where to get a
fly--and if you will only promise not to interfere with me, and to
let me leave you, when and how I please--I have a friend in London
who will be glad to receive me--I want nothing else--will you
promise?"

She looked anxiously up and down the road; shifted her bag again
from one hand to the other; repeated the words, "Will you
promise?" and looked hard in my face, with a pleading fear and
confusion that it troubled me to see.

What could I do? Here was a stranger utterly and helplessly at my
mercy--and that stranger a forlorn woman. No house was near; no
one was passing whom I could consult; and no earthly right existed
on my part to give me a power of control over her, even if I had