already, Mr. Quatermain, and hates this marriage
even more than I do, if that is possible. But he is driven to
it, as I am. Oh! I must tell the truth. The doctor has some
hold over him. My father has done something dreadful; I don't
know what and I don't want to know, but if it came out it would
ruin my father, or worse, worse. I am the price of his silence.
On the day of our marriage he will destroy the proofs. If I
refuse to marry him, they will be produced and then--"

"It is difficult," I said.

"It is more than difficult, it is terrible. If you could see all
there is in my heart, you would know how terrible."

"I think I can see, Miss Heda. Don't say any more now. Give me
time to consider. In case of necessity come to me again, and be
sure that I will protect you."

"But you are going in a week."

"Many things happen in a week. Sufficient to the day is its
evil. At the end of the week we will come to some decision
unless everything is already decided."

For the next twenty-four hours I reflected on this pretty problem
as hard as ever I did on anything in all my life. Here was a
young woman who must somehow be protected from a scoundrel, but who
could not be protected because she herself had to protect another
scoundrel--to wit, her own father. Could the thing be faced out?
Impossible, for I was sure that Marnham had committed a murder,
or murders, of which Rodd possessed evidence that would hang him.
Could Heda be married to Anscombe at once? Yes, if both were
willing, but then Marnham would still be hung. Could they elope?
Possibly, but with the same result. Could I take her away and
put her under the protection of the Court at Pretoria? Yes, but
with the same result. I wondered what my Hottentot retainer,
Hans, would have advised, he who was named Light-in-Darkness, and
in his own savage way was the cleverest and most cunning man that
I have met. Alas! I could not raise him from the grave to tell
me, and yet I knew well what he would have answered.

"Baas," he would have said, "this is a rope which only the pale
old man (i.e., death) can cut. Let this doctor die or let the
father die, and the maiden will be free. Surely heaven is
longing for one or both of them, and if necessary, Baas, I
believe that I can point out a path to heaven!"

I laughed to myself at the thought, which was one that a white
man could not entertain even as a thought. And I felt that the
hypothetical Hans