"'Take care,' she said, 'you are in my power. What do you mean?'
"'I mean that your husband penetrated the secrets of Buddha, and that you married him so as to regain those secrets. There were papers and the like, or he would merely have been assassinated in the ordinary vulgar manner, and there would have been an end of the business. Your husband has got an inkling of this and that is why he has hidden the documents and refuses to give them up; he would be murdered if he did.'
"'You are a bold man,' the princess said.
"'Not at all,' I replied. 'A man can only die once. Would you say that the condemned murderer was rash for attempting to pick the pocket of the gaoler, even for attempting to murder him? What I say and what I do matters nothing. And you know that I am telling the truth.'
"The princess smiled. My friend Ralph here will remember that smile."
"I could see then," Ralph muttered, "and I do remember it."
"'Very well,' the princess replied, 'you are candid and I will be the same. What you have said about my husband is perfectly true. I did marry him to recover those papers. And when I accidently let out the truth that I was not outcast of my tribe he saw his danger. He is safe till those papers are mine. And then I shall kill him.
"'And yet I love that man—I shall be desolate without him. But my religion and my people come first. For them I lose my caste, for them I degrade myself by becoming the wife of a white sahib, for them I shall eventually die. And yet I love my husband. Ay, you cannot command the human heart.'
"At this I laughed. The princess joined me.
"'You think I have no heart,' she said, 'but you are mistaken. You shall see. For the present I have my duty to perform. I do it thus.'