"I must! I must!" she repeated. "Oh, I should like to go with you, but I can't."
"But think of yourself!" he cried harshly. "Your uncle and aunt can die for the glory of God if they choose, but they've no right to let you die, too, just out of loyalty to them. It's cruel and wrong. It makes me sick to think of you penned up here in this nasty, yellow place all these years when you ought to have been going to school, and riding and sailing, and playing tennis, and having a good time."
"Oh!" she protested.
"No, hear me out," he insisted, "and having a good time! You can serve God and yet be happy, can't you? And your place isn't here in the midst of cholera and famine and malaria. It's different with people who have lived their lives, but with you, so young and fresh and pretty."
"Oh!" she cried joyfully, "do you think I am pretty? I'm so glad!"
"Do I!" he replied hotly. "Too pretty to be allowed to go wandering around these crooked Chinese streets—" he checked himself. "I say it's a shame! And now to stay here, after all, to be butchered!" He jumped to his feet and ground his teeth.
She gazed at him, startled, and said reproachfully:
"I don't think it is right for you to say things like that. 'Whoso loseth his life for my sake shall find it.' Don't you remember?"
He made no reply, realizing the hopelessness of his position.