Miles sprang forward, with a happy confidence, to meet her, but she
checked him with a hardly perceptible gesture, and he stopped where he
was. She seated herself, and asked him to do likewise. Thus simply did
she take the sense of old comradeship out of him, and transform him into
a stranger and a guest. The surprise of it, the bewildering
unexpectedness of it, made him begin to question, for a moment, if he WAS
the person he was pretending to be, after all. The Lady Edith said--

"Sir, I have come to warn you. The mad cannot be persuaded out of their
delusions, perchance; but doubtless they may be persuaded to avoid
perils. I think this dream of yours hath the seeming of honest truth to
you, and therefore is not criminal--but do not tarry here with it; for
here it is dangerous." She looked steadily into Miles's face a moment,
then added, impressively, "It is the more dangerous for that you ARE much
like what our lost lad must have grown to be if he had lived."

"Heavens, madam, but I AM he!"

"I truly think you think it, sir. I question not your honesty in that; I
but warn you, that is all. My husband is master in this region; his
power hath hardly any limit; the people prosper or starve, as he wills.
If you resembled not the man whom you profess to be, my husband might bid
you pleasure yourself with your dream in peace; but trust me, I know him
well; I know what he will do; he will say to all that you are but a mad
impostor, and straightway all will echo him." She bent upon Miles that
same steady look once more, and added: "If you WERE Miles Hendon, and he
knew it and all the region knew it--consider what I am saying, weigh it
well--you would stand in the same peril, your punishment would be no less
sure; he would deny you and denounce you, and none would be bold enough