"It was Roshan Khân," she said, with a smile, that half-amused, half-mysterious smile. "He gave me the dress, you know, and I think he wanted me--to marry him. Hush! what's the use of being angry--now?" She checked his incredulous outcry, and her hand hesitated up to his trembling fingers, and held them back from their task. "Don't," she went on; "I'd rather--you didn't waste time. I want you to look at me--only me--me, myself. Ah! that's nice!"
There was an instant's silence; then her eyes wandered to his cuff as it rested on her corselet, and she smiled again. "We match, don't we? I'm glad. Besides, it won't stain much. I expect--that's why soldiers wear red, isn't it?"
The deadly realism roused Vincent to a sort of fury at his own helplessness. But what could a man do, caught in a second by Fate to be chief actor in a scene like this, where he was lost,--lost utterly? And those two fools looking on--doing nothing!
"At least, in common charity, you might help. You're something of a doctor!" he cried passionately. "We can settle scores afterwards, you and I, can't we? But now you might help her."
"What did she say?" asked Father Ninian, tonelessly. He had caught a word or two, and their triviality, in the face of what had happened--a triviality common in those who have been struck down as she had been, almost painlessly--had but increased his bewilderment. "What does it mean? How do you come here? I must know, first."
The girl had turned her face quickly to the new voice; and, after vainly trying to rise, lay back breathlessly. "Tell him, Vincent; he's Father Laurence. Remember--he must know--and--and I--can't--"
"Then here it is, sir!" broke in Vincent, brutally. "If you will wait to know, when every moment is precious. We love each other--you've done it in your time, I'm told! I've been coming here, night after night, to see her; she wears that dress to please me--there! Now you've got it! And to-night, some devil--she says Roshan Khân, but she's dreaming; what can he have to do with it?--stood there and fired--at me, I think; but she flung herself--Ah! Laila, my darling, why did you? Now, will that satisfy you--you--you--"
"Hush!" came Laila's voice--"there is no use in being angry. Besides, he understands; he knows what it is to be in love quite well. Don't you, guardian? You loved her, didn't you? Margherita, I mean--"
She wandered off into Italian--the language they always spoke, and her rich voice dulled, died away, as the faintness returned.
"For God's sake, sir, bring the light, if you won't do anything else!" cried Vincent, wildly. "She has fainted, I think--I can't see--it is so dark. For God's sake, sir, the light at least!"