board, Doctor,
nor the others. Don't you see I was with the woman I loved? I might have
seized her in my arms and jumped overboard with her, and swam ashore
with her, or I might have stayed and died with her. I thought of my own
wretched life, and I deserted her."

"My dear Bathurst, you did not think of your life. I don't think any
of us stopped to think of anything; but, constituted as you are, the
impulse must have been overpowering. It is nonsense your taking this
matter to heart. Why, man, if you had stopped, you would have been
murdered when the boat touched the shore, and do you think it would have
made her happier to have seen you killed before her eyes? If you had
swam ashore with her, the chances are she would have been killed by that
volley of grape, for I saw eight or ten bodies lying on the sands, and
you yourself were, you say, hit. You acted upon impulse, I grant, but
it was upon a wise impulse. You did the very best thing that could have
been done, and your doing so made it possible that Isobel Hannay should
be rescued from what would otherwise have been certain death."

"It has turned out so, Doctor," Bathurst said gloomily, "and I thank God
that she is saved. But that does not alter the fact that I, an English
gentleman by birth, thought only of myself, and left the woman I loved,
who was sitting by my side, to perish. But do not let us talk any more
about it. It is done and over. There is an end of it. Now I will tell
you the story."

The Doctor listened silently until he heard of Isobel's being taken to
Bithoor. "The atrocious villain!" he exclaimed. "I have been lamenting
the last month that I never poisoned the fellow, and now--but go on, go
on. How on earth did you get her away?"

Bathurst told the whole story, interrupted by many exclamations of
approval by the Doctor; especially when he learned why Isobel disfigured
herself.

"Well done!" he exclaimed; "I always knew that she was a plucky girl,
and it needed courage, I can tell you, to burn herself as she has
done, to say nothing of risking spoiling her beauty for life. No slight
sacrifice for a woman."

Bathurst passed lightly over his fight in the courtyard, but the Doctor
questioned him as to the exact facts.

"Not so bad for a coward, Bathurst," he said dryly.

"There was no noise," Bathurst said; "if they had had pistols, and had
used them, it might have been different. Heaven knows, but I don't think
that then, with her life at s