There was something prettily comical in her attitude and her tone, while I pictured to myself a poor white-faced girl walking to her death with an unconscious man striding by her side.

Unconscious?
I don't know.

First of all, I felt certain that this was no chance meeting.

Something had happened before.
Was he a man for a _coup-de-foudre_, the lightning stroke of love?
I don't think so.

That sort of susceptibility is luckily rare.