going away then, Captain Forster?" she asked quietly.

"I don't want to go alone," he said; "I cannot go alone--I want you to
go with me. Your uncle would surely consent; it is the only chance of
saving your life. We all know that it is next to hopeless that a force
sufficient to rescue us can be sent; there is just a chance, but that is
all that can be said. We could be married at Allahabad. I would make for
that town instead of Lucknow if you will go with me, and I could leave
you there in safety till these troubles are over; I am going to take
another horse as well as my own, and two would be as likely to escape as
one."

"Thank you for the offer, Captain Forster," she said coldly, "but I
decline it. My place is here with my uncle and the others."

"Why is it?" he asked passionately. "If you love me, your place is
surely with me; and you do love me, Isobel, do you not? Surely I have
not been mistaken."

Isobel was silent for a moment.

"You were mistaken, Captain Forster," she said, after a pause. "You paid
me attentions such as I had heard you paid to many others, and it was
pleasant. That you were serious I did not think. I believed you were
simply flirting with me; that you meant no more by it than you had meant
before; and being forewarned, and therefore having no fear that I should
hurt myself more than you would, I entered into it in the same spirit.
Where there was so much to be anxious about, it was a pleasure and
relief. Had I met you elsewhere, and under different circumstances, I
think I should have come to love you. A girl almost without experience
and new to the world, as I am, could hardly have helped doing so,
I think. Had I thought you were in earnest I should have acted
differently; and if I have deceived you by my manner I am sorry; but
even had I loved you I would not have consented to do the thing you ask
me. You are going on duty. You are going in the hope of obtaining aid
for us. I should be simply escaping while others stay, and I should
despise myself for the action. Besides; I do not think that even in that
case my uncle would have consented to my going with you."

"I am sure that he would," Forster broke in. "He would never be mad
enough to refuse you the chance of escape from such a fate as may now
await you."

"We need not discuss the question," she said. "Even if I loved you, I
would not go with you; and I do not love you."

"They have prejudiced you against me," he said angrily.