“No,” she pleaded, her eyes eager, her mouth trembling. “I have been thinking it out, my dear, up there on the roof. You can make an excuse. You were seized yesterday night after you had visited the Headquarters. You were pulled from your horse. You were kept imprisoned and escaped to-night.”
“No one would believe that story, Marguerite. The people of Fez are making no prisoners.”
“Then you took refuge in the house of a friend! You have many friends in Fez, Paul. A word from you and any one of them will back you up and say he gave you shelter. It’ll be so easy, Paul, if you’ll only listen.”
“And meanwhile, Marguerite, what of you?”
She was waiting for that question with her answer ready upon her lips.
“Yes. I have thought of that too, Paul. I shall be quite safe here now by myself. They have searched this house already. They went away satisfied with your story. They will not come here again.”
Paul smiled at her tenderly. She stood before him with so eager a flush upon her face, a light so appealing in her eyes. Only this morning—was it so short a time ago as this morning?—yes, only this morning she had been terrified, even with him at her side, because they were shut in within this house without windows, because they could see nothing, know nothing, and must wait and wait with their hearts fluttering at a cry, at the crack of a rifle, at the sound of a step. Now her one thought was to send him forth, to endure alone the dreadful hours of ignorance and expectation, to meet, if needs must, the loneliest of deaths, so that his honour might be saved and his high career retained.
“You are thinking too much of me, Marguerite,” he said, gently.
“I am thinking of myself, my dear, just as much as I am thinking of you. I am thinking of your love for me. What am I without it?”
“Nothing will change that,” protested Paul.
“My dear, how many lovers have used and listened to those words? Is there one pair that hasn’t? I am looking forward, Paul, to when this trouble is over—to the best that is possible for us two if we are alive when it is over. Your way! Flight, concealment for the rest of our lives and a bond of disgrace to hold us together instead of a bond of love which has done no harm to any one and has given a world of happiness to both of us. Paul, my way is the better way! Oh, believe it and leave me! Paul, I am pleading for myself—I am!—and”—the light went out of her eyes, her head and her body drooped a little; he had never seen anything so forlorn as Marguerite suddenly looked—“and, oh, ever so much more than you imagine!” she added, wistfully.